'Black box in which to disappear people': Detainees describe ICE facility in lawsuit
- - 'Black box in which to disappear people': Detainees describe ICE facility in lawsuit
Michael Loria, USA TODAY October 31, 2025 at 7:28 PM
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CHICAGO – Detainees held by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Illinois have filed a lawsuit saying the conditions they were held in were "filthy," "cruel" and aimed at "coercing" them to leave the country.
The federal lawsuit in the Northern District of Illinois comes as the Supreme Court weighs whether to allow President Donald Trump to deploy troops to the city. Since the president launched his crackdown on the region, known as Operation Midway Blitz, Homeland Security officials say they have arrested 3,000 people during immigration enforcement. The facility at the center of the lawsuit is the site where new detainees are taken before being removed from Illinois.
Pablo Moreno Gonzalez and Felipe Agustin Zamacona’s lawsuit against Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and others acting at her direction offers the most detailed account yet of the conditions detainees experience. Journalists, members of Congress and clergy have not been given access to the facility located in the Chicago suburb of Broadview, Illinois.
Homeland Security "created a black box in which to disappear people from the U.S. justice and immigration systems," the lawsuit says, adding "the facility is a breeding ground for illness to spread … with poor sanitation, clogged toilets, and blood, human fluids, and insects in the sinks and on the walls."
Federal agents and protesters speak through a fence outside a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Broadview, Ill., on Sept. 29, 2025. The facility is at the heart of President Donald Trump’s Operation. Midway Blitz, an effort to crackdown on immigration enforcement in the Chicago area.
Federal officials use dire conditions as a way of "coercing people to sign immigration paperwork that many detainees do not understand" including agreeing to be sent out of the country without seeing a judge, according to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit asks for conditions to be improved and for attorneys to be allowed to contact clients inside. Chicago immigration attorneys have said for weeks that they cannot reach detainees at the facility.
Attorneys for the MacArthur Justice Center, the ACLU of Illinois and the Chicago office of law firm Eimer Stahl are representing the plaintiffs.
Homeland Security officials called the account of conditions at the facility "false."
"This type of garbage about ICE facilities is contributing to our officers facing an 8000% increase in death threats against them," said Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin.
Agency officials have also transformed the site in recent months. Plywood panels cover the windows and officials erected a large metal fence around the site until a federal judge made them take it down.
Accounts of the state of the facility have in part made it a hotbed of protests and between Oct. 3 and 19, 68 people have been arrested at protests outside the site, according to Cook County Sheriff’s Office data shared with USA TODAY.
Department of Justice lawyer Eric Hamilton said at an Oct. 9 hearing in federal court in downtown Chicago that agents had deployed $100,000 of non-lethal weapons to stop "rioters" from hindering immigration enforcement at the site since the launch of the blitz crackdown on Sept. 8.
Judge orders immigrants in lawsuit returned to Illinois
Moreno Gonzalez is an immigrant who was arrested on the North Side of Chicago on Oct. 29, according to the lawsuit. Zamacona is an Illinois resident who immigrated to the U.S. over 30 years, according to the lawsuit. He was arrested in Wheeling, Illinois, while at his job as a delivery driver.
Immigration authorities moved the pair out of state to Kansas but U.S. District Judge Robert W. Gettleman ordered them back to Illinois on Oct. 31 at a hearing.
Gettleman said he wanted the pair either back at the immigration enforcement facility in Broadview or the federal jail in downtown Chicago, and that he wanted them to appear in person at a hearing on Nov. 4.
Attorneys for the pair said they have not been able to contact their clients. Gettleman ordered that immigration authorities reconnect the attorneys with the pair of immigrants named in the lawsuit.
The judge ordered immigration authorities to allow the immigrant pair to call their attorneys if they cannot be returned to Illinois immediately and if returned to the Chicago-area immigration enforcement facility, attorneys be allowed to visit their clients.
Gettleman noted he has seen similar complaints in other federal cases in the Northern District of Illinois that attorneys cannot reach clients at the facility.
An attorney for the government said that he could not respond to the descriptions of the immigration enforcement facility detailed in the lawsuit.
Alexa Van Brunt, an attorney for the plaintiffs, replied that "there is a human rights emergency unfurling outside the city."
'Warehousing people… for days on end': Lawsuit details conditions
The facility in suburban Broadview named in the lawsuit is an Immigration and Customs Enforcement "processing center," where new detainees are registered before being moved elsewhere.
Processing centers are not supposed to hold people for longer than 72 hours, experts have previously told USA TODAY.
According to the lawsuit, immigration authorities at the facility "are now warehousing people at Broadview for days on end."
The lawsuit says dozens of people are being held in overcrowded cells and left to sleep for up to weeks on plastic chairs or a concrete floor; they lack food and water; and cannot clean themselves, including being denied access to menstrual products, or change clothes.
Temperatures at the facility are extreme and only some people receive foil blankets or sweatclothes, the lawsuit says. Detainees are not given medical screenings and are denied access to medicines, including prescription medications brought by family members, according to the lawsuit. Bathrooms lack privacy, allowing men and women to watch each other use the toilet, the lawsuit says.
McLaughlin, Noem’s top spokesperson, denied the lawsuit’s account of the facility, saying there is adequate food, water, privacy and medical care. The spokesperson said detainees have access to phones to communicate with family and lawyers. She said the facility is not used to hold people long-term.
"Any claims there are subprime conditions at the Broadview ICE facility are false," McLaughlin said. "Some of the worst of the worst including pedophiles, gang members, and rapists have been processed through the facility in recent weeks. The ACLU should just change its name. It’s clear they only care about criminal illegal aliens—not Americans."
'Attempt to silence dissent': Congressional candidate indicted for ICE resistance in Chicago
U.S. Congressional candidate Kat Abughazaleh stands with anti-immigration enforcement protesters outside an immigration detention facility in Broadview, Illinois. Abughazaleh has been charged in connection with her protest efforts.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Chicago ICE facility is a 'black box,' detainees say in lawsuit
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