* WTTW…
Detainees at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement processing center in suburban Broadview have been blocked from speaking with legal counsel and subjected to “inhumane” conditions during their incarceration, a new lawsuit alleges.
The suit, brought on behalf of Broadview detainees Pablo Moreno Gonzalez and Felipe Agustin Zamacona by the MacArthur Justice Center and the ACLU of Illinois, claims ICE officials have “cut off detainees from the outside world” by preventing them from making confidential phone calls to their lawyer or a prospective lawyer.
“By blocking access to detainees inside Broadview, Defendants have created a black box in which to disappear people from the U.S. justice and immigration systems,” the lawsuit states.
* From the complaint…
Broadview is meant to be a “holding” facility, a way station where people are briefly held for processing before being moved to a longer-term detention facility. Historically, people were held for a few hours in the holding cells that occupy a portion of the first floor. But in the wake of Midway Blitz, Defendants are now warehousing people at Broadview for days on end. The consequences have been dire, and wholly predictable.
Plaintiffs and the putative class members are immigration detainees who have been arrested by officers operating under Defendants’ command. They are being confined at Broadview inside overcrowded holding cells containing dozens of people at a time. People are forced to attempt to sleep for days or sometimes weeks on plastic chairs or on the filthy concrete floor. They are denied sufficient food and water. They cannot shower, they are denied soap, hygiene items, and menstrual products, and they have no way to clean themselves. They are often denied a change of clothes. The temperatures are extreme and uncomfortable.
* Block Club Chicago…
“DHS personnel have denied access to counsel, legislators, and journalists so that the harsh and deteriorating conditions at the facility can be shielded from public view,” Kevin Lee, legal director for the ACLU of Illinois, said in a statement.
“These conditions are unconstitutional and threaten to coerce people into sacrificing their rights without the benefit of legal advice and a full airing of their legal defenses.”
“They treated us like animals, or worse than animals, because no one treats their pets like that,” one woman said in the lawsuit.
* The Tribune…
Meanwhile, the complaint says, officers are coercing people to sign documents that relinquish their rights, as officials try to deport them without going before an immigration judge.
“Defendants are transferring people to distant detention facilities—or sending them out of the country outright—before their attorneys can locate them and intervene,” according to the complaint.
* More…
* Sun-Times | Broadview ICE facility a ‘black box’ where immigrants denied access to lawyers, medicine: lawsuit: DHS officials have previously told Chicago Sun-Times and WBEZ that the facility is operated “in strict accordance with its National Detention Standards. But as a processing center, Broadview has no beds or cafeteria, and yet, the most recently available records show that federal authorities have jailed immigrants there for more than three, four or even five days. That’s according to records through the end of July, weeks before Trump escalated his mass deportation “blitz” on Chicago, flooding the city and suburbs with federal immigration officers.
- Occasionally Moderated - Friday, Oct 31, 25 @ 12:30 pm:
I know this point is never well received but I want to point this out- if the feds were still contracting with our county jails, the detainees would not be having this problem seeing counsel. They would have guaranteed conditions, access to attorneys, visiting hours and phones. They could call their loved ones and tell them where they are.
We have the best intentions but we are creating unintended consequences for those we are trying to protect.
- 47th Ward - Friday, Oct 31, 25 @ 12:43 pm:
===if the feds were still contracting with our county jails, the detainees would not be having this problem seeing counsel.===
As long as ICE is still targeting people based on their skin color, and for no other reason, I don’t think anything else you wrote matters much. People getting “disappeared” is the problem. The horrible facilities and treatment is just extra painful.
- H-W - Friday, Oct 31, 25 @ 12:52 pm:
@ Occasionally Moderated
Let me get this straight. You are suggesting if the federal law enforcement agencies were allowed to use county jails, the accused would not have their Constitutional protections being violated by the federales. Got it.
- JS Mill - Friday, Oct 31, 25 @ 1:57 pm:
=would not have their Constitutional protections being violated by the federales. Got it.=
My interpretation of his statement would be that they would not have their Constitutional protections being violated…as much.
But still violated. So no real change sort of because they may be dispersed all over the state. instead of closer to home.
- Dupage - Friday, Oct 31, 25 @ 1:58 pm:
I thought Kristi Noem was falsely accusing Illinois of giving out “non-domiciled commercial truck driver licenses”. Alexi Giannoulis, a commercial driver license by Illinois law, must be to a citizen of the US, resident of Illinois, and be able to read and speak English well enough to understand safety regulations and read road signs. These non-domiciled CDL truck drivers are causing accident fatalities among regular car drivers. If you remember a former IL SOS later IL Governor was blamed for a terrible accident that killed several members of a family who burned alive. After that, Illinois cracked down on enforcing CDL eligibility requirements. It appears under your watch, someone has rolled these back, allowing unquailed persons to obtain an Illinois CDL.
Alexi, please put a stop to this and explain that it slipped through without your knowledge, if that is true. If you knew about it, you might want to consider another line of work.
- Occasionally Moderated - Friday, Oct 31, 25 @ 2:31 pm:
My comments are caught in moderation and with last night’s late coverage hours it is understandable that it is not the highest priority. I’ll try again.
We can’t stop what the feds are doing. But once immigrants are taken into custody, would you rather have them go to the black hole of Broadview or perhaps a facility run by elected officials like Tom Dart or Ron Hain. Local officials that have ties to the community. Officials who will still be here long after ice blows out of town.
If they were going to local jails we could set up emergency outreach. Pro bono attorneys. Community outreach to families of the detained. Detainees could have access to phones to make arrangements. There would be visiting hours.
This isn’t complicity with ice. It is the opportunity to take people under our wings and look out for them after something bad that we aren’t able to prevent happens to them.
- Stephanie Kollmann - Friday, Oct 31, 25 @ 2:39 pm:
It’s an interesting story, OM, but it’s not what was actually happening prior to the TRUST Act.
- Occasionally Moderated - Friday, Oct 31, 25 @ 2:52 pm:
S K, Are the immigrants better off or worse off for it?
Right now, this moment, they are worse off. And we are clinging to misplaced idealism at their expense.
I personally believe the Governor has a big heart. I personally don’t believe most Illinoisans like any of this stuff. I’m talking a temporary adjustment until comprehensive immigration reform at the national level can happen. I’m talking a boots on the ground adjustment to what we are doing right now. For the benefit of the immigrants and their families.
- ArchPundit - Friday, Oct 31, 25 @ 4:12 pm:
DHS is sending people all over the country to hide detainees from habeas petitions and their lawyers so opening up local jails won’t help anything other than another place to hide people from other places.