Lawsuit accuses ICE of detaining two women in 'inhumane' conditions in Baltimore

Mathew Schumer, The Baltimore Sun on May 14, 2025

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A lawsuit filed by two immigrant advocacy groups alleges that detainees at ICE’s Baltimore Field Office are “subjected to inhumane and punitive conditions.”

The suit was filed last week in the U.S. District Court by Amica Center for Immigrant Rights and the National Immigration Project on behalf of two women from Guatemala and El Salvador who were detained during their mandatory check-ins at ICE’s field office in Baltimore .

U.S. District Judge Julie R. Rubin issued a preliminary injunction Wednesday preventing ICE from deporting either plaintiff for the duration of the suit.

The plaintiffs were granted relief from deportation by immigration judges in 2012 and 2017, respectively, and legally reside in Maryland. Both women have two children with either a green card or U.S. citizenship.

As of the filing, one of the plaintiffs had been held for nearly 36 hours, while the other had spent about 60 hours in holding, despite the rooms being intended to house detainees for no more than 12 hours.

According to the suit, the plaintiff from Guatemala, who lives with her family in Frederick, was denied medication for her Type 2 diabetes for over a day until her attorney convinced ICE agents to allow her children to bring it to her. The agents also were unable the capacity]” “]to provide treatment for the panic attack she endured during her detention.

The complaint also alleges that ICE detainees in Baltimore “have no access to soap, showers, towels, toothpaste, toothbrushes, clean clothes, or laundry.” They are only provided one small bottle of water to drink three times a day, and have little access to a phone to contact friends and family or to arrange legal representation.

The allegations are consistent with a report by U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen, who visited and toured the Baltimore Field Office in April. In a release following the visit, he stated that the facility has no medical center or staff, nor does it have a dedicated food service contract or area for detainees to sleep.

Van Hollen also found that the average length of stay at the facility in 2025 was around one and a half days, which is “more than four times the six- to eight-hour duration the BHR is equipped for and three times what is allowed under ICE standards.”

“All of this is simply a product of ICE’s decision to arrest anybody and everybody, regardless of their circumstances and regardless of their institutional capacity to care for these folks,” Daniel Melow, one of the plaintiffs’ attorneys, told The Baltimore Sun on Wednesday.

A representative of the Department of Homeland Security disputed these claims, saying in an email to The Sun that ICE provides detainees with medical screenings within 12 hours of arriving at a detention facility, as well as access to 24-hour emergency care.

“ICE takes its commitment to promoting safe, secure, humane environments for those in our custody very seriously. It is a longstanding practice to provide comprehensive medical care from the moment an alien enters ICE custody,” the DHS official said.

However, ICE previously rebuked critics of detention practices at its Baltimore Field Office, maintaining that the facility is a holding room, rather than a detention facility.

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