After covertly recorded video footage<\/a> showed detainees lying on cement floors with nothing but emergency blankets, steps away from a toilet separated only by a waist-high partition, a spokesperson for Homeland Security flatly denied any allegations of \u201covercrowding or subprime conditions\u201d as \u201ccategorically false.\u201d<\/p>\n But newly released emails, text messages and testimony from Immigration and Customs Enforcement<\/a> officers themselves suggest that they not only knew that conditions were deteriorating but were also repeatedly raising red flags<\/a> to their colleagues.<\/a><\/p>\n One official said that they were \u201cconcerned about the safety of everyone there.\u201d Another called conditions at the facility \u201cinsane,\u201d while a third said they were \u201ccreating an unsafe environment.\u201d<\/p>\n ICE officials insist conditions have improved since then, but a federal judge who presided over one of the first-ever trials against immigration detention<\/a> under Donald Trump\u2019s administration this week has raised the idea of shutting it down altogether.<\/p>\n In another email, an ICE official admitted that the facility was holding at least 200 people and counting, with an estimated additional 60 arrests each day. \u201cHopefully we don\u2019t wait until something negative happens,\u201d Lige Hampton wrote.<\/a><\/p>\n ICE is a \u201cvictim of our own success,\u201d wrote<\/a> New York ICE official Ladeon Francis, who noted that officers were arresting more people \u201cthan bedspace can be found locally.\u201d<\/p>\n The makeshift detention space was \u201cnever designed for such an operation,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is insane,\u201d another official wrote in an email<\/a>. \u201cWe desperately need to get some detainees out of 26 Fed. \u2026 Something has to get done.\u201d<\/p>\n Following this week\u2019s one-day trial on conditions at the facility, a spokesperson for Homeland Security again told The Independent that \u201cany claim that there is overcrowding or subprime conditions at ICE facilities\u201d is \u201ccategorically false.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAll detainees are provided with proper meals, medical treatment, and have opportunities to communicate with their family members and lawyers,\u201d the person said. \u201cAs we arrest and remove criminal illegal aliens and public safety threats from the U.S., ICE has worked diligently to obtain greater necessary detention space while avoiding overcrowding.\u201d<\/p>\n The documents were released as part of one of the first-ever trials over ICE detentions during Trump\u2019s presidency, with the 10th floor holding rooms at 26 Federal Plaza emerging as a flashpoint for ICE arrests.<\/p>\n The building, which also houses Manhattan\u2019s largest immigration court, includes four cells that are designed for only short-term stays. In practice, detainees are held there while waiting for their transfer to larger immigrant detention centers.<\/p>\n Those \u201chold rooms\u201d are not intended to hold people for longer than 12 hours, according to ICE\u2019s own internal guidance. But immigrants testified that they\u2019ve spent days at a time inside. The cells do not have beds or showers.<\/p>\n Nuvia Ventura Martinez was abruptly detained after her ICE check-in appointment last summer and hauled to the makeshift holding room, where conditions were \u201cdreadful,\u201d she wrote in testimony to the court.<\/a> Women who were menstruating were bleeding through their clothes, food was \u201calmost non-existent,\u201d and she didn\u2019t have access to her diabetes medicine, she wrote.<\/p>\n \u201cI was just a body that they crammed into a room, almost as if to be forgotten,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Officers grabbed Carlos Lopez Benitez after his immigration court hearing, which he attended with his two U.S. citizen sisters, he wrote<\/a> in a declaration to the court. One officer held up his phone to show Lopez Benitez a photo of himself weeping, he wrote. The officer laughed, he said.<\/p>\n \u201cI asked why they were doing this and an ICE officer said \u2018it\u2019s a new government,\u2019\u201d Lopez Benitez wrote.<\/p>\n Similarly grim accounts from people inside the facility emerged last summer. Detainees said they were fed inedible \u201cslop\u201d and were forced to sleep in cells surrounded by the \u201chorrific stench\u201d of sweat, urine and feces in rooms with open toilets, and others reported spending as much as three weeks inside the facility without a chance to bathe or brush their teeth.<\/p>\n In August, Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered the administration to improve conditions<\/a> \u2014 and banned ICE from detaining people in spaces with less than 50 square feet per person, which shrinks the capacity of the largest hold room to roughly a dozen or so people.<\/p>\n ICE officials were failing the court order within days after it was issued, newly released messages show.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are in violation of the [temporary restraining order],\u201d wrote<\/a> Nancy Zanello, an official with ICE\u2019s New York City Field Office of Enforcement and Removal Operations. There were 48 people in the holding spaces and more were coming, she said.<\/p>\n The restraining order is \u201ccrippling,\u201d another official wrote.<\/a><\/p>\n ICE officials were also aware of \u201cserious medical needs\u201d among detainees but ignored them, according to the lawsuit.<\/p>\n Zanello exchanged text messages about several medical emergencies<\/a>, including a detainee with monkeypox and reports of another person having a \u201cseizure\u201d and one person referred to as \u201ccardiac lady.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThis week has been one gross contagion after another,\u201d she wrote in an email last July.<\/p>\n \u201cWe don\u2019t have her meds it\u2019s becoming an issue,\u201d one text message reads<\/a>. \u201cAnd we have a guy with monkeypox.\u201d<\/p>\n Immigrants\u2019 rights groups, lawyers and lawmakers warned for weeks about deteriorating conditions inside the building, sparking a lawsuit at the center of the case.<\/p>\n Thousands of people across the country have faced arrest after showing up for court-ordered ICE check-ins and immigration court hearings as part of Trump\u2019s campaign to rapidly arrest and deport at least 1 million people each year.<\/p>\n The Department of Justice\u2019s Executive Office for Immigration Review also instructed immigration judges to immediately dismiss immigrants\u2019 cases, making them easy targets for arrest and removal once they leave the courtroom.<\/p>\n A federal judge overseeing a separate case ripped into the \u201carbitrary\u201d practice of arresting immigrants as they leave their hearings, creating what he called a \u201cgame of detention roulette\u201d that violates due process.<\/a><\/p>\n ICE has allegedly withdrawn the policy, but another federal judge has blocked the agency from arresting most immigrants while they\u2019re inside New York City\u2019s immigration courts.<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Emails,](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/2226685259...jpeg\")
Emails, text messages and testimony in a lawsuit over conditions at a makeshift detention center inside a Manhattan skyscraper appear to show ICE officials feared conditions were deteriorating while repeatedly raising red flags to their colleagues in 2025 (Getty)<\/p>\n![\"ICE](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Screenshot-2026-05-29-at-10-54-12-AM.png\")
ICE sought to prevent the release of images showing the inside of a holding cell in downtown Manhattan, where detainees were crammed into a makeshift detention space after a surge of arrests in 2025 (United States District Court for the Southern District of New York)<\/p>\n![\"Text](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/MixCollage-29-May-2026-11-51-AM-6953.jpg\")
Text messages among ICE officials revealed in court documents appear to show concerns about overcrowding and urgent medical issues inside 26 Federal Plaza in 2025 (United States District Court for the Southern District of New York)<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/TOPSHOT-US-POLITICS-IMMIGRATION-ENFORCEMENT-AFP-PICTURES-OF-THE-YEAR-2025-vaw2om45.jpeg\")
A federal judge has blocked ICE from arresting immigrants inside New York City\u2019s immigration courthouses after a surge of arrests led to overcrowding in a makeshift holding room (AFP\/Getty)<\/p>\n