- Federal judge issued a 15-point temporary order demanding immediate humane conditions at Broadview ICE processing center.
- Order mandates basic necessities, medical care, attorney access, interpreters, and transparency amid reports of filthy, overcrowded detention.
- The ruling intensifies clashes between federal enforcement and local activists, highlighting legal challenges and calls to shut the facility.
CHICAGO — In a sharp rebuke to federal immigration authorities, a federal judge on Wednesday issued a 15-point temporary restraining order demanding immediate improvements at a Chicago-area ICE processing center, where detainees have described sleeping on filthy floors next to overflowing toilets and going days without basic hygiene items or access to lawyers.
The ruling, which lasts for 14 days, comes amid a broader surge in immigration enforcement that’s turned the suburb of Broadview into a flashpoint for protests, lawsuits, and raw confrontations between federal agents and local activists.
U.S. District Judge Robert W. Gettleman didn’t mince words during a hearing the day before, calling the reported conditions “disgusting” and “unnecessarily cruel.” “People shouldn’t be sleeping next to overflowing toilets. They should not be sleeping on top of each other,” Gettleman said, according to court transcripts and reports from the hearing.
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His order requires ICE to provide clean bedding and enough space for everyone held overnight, showers at least every other day in sanitary facilities, three full meals daily meeting U.S. dietary guidelines, bottled water with meals and on request, soap, towels, toilet paper, toothbrushes, toothpaste, menstrual products, and prescribed medications.
It also mandates private phone access for attorney calls, lists of pro bono immigration lawyers in English and Spanish, interpreter services, accurate listings in ICE’s online detainee locator, and an end to pressuring detainees to sign untranslated or misrepresented forms.
The facility in question, at 1930 Beach Street in Broadview, was designed as a short-term processing center — meant to hold people for no more than 12 hours before transfer, release, or deportation.
But under the Trump administration’s ramped-up “Operation Midway Blitz,” it’s morphed into what critics call a de facto prison.
A Chicago Sun-Times and WBEZ investigation found that ICE held 143 people there for two or more days during the first seven months of 2025 alone, a stark jump from the 2023 average hold time of five hours.
Detainees have testified to being crammed 100 or more into single-occupancy cells, sharing space with open toilets, and surviving on sporadic cold meals without utensils.
The lawsuit sparking Gettleman’s intervention was filed October 31 by the MacArthur Justice Center, ACLU of Illinois, and Eimer Stahl on behalf of detainees like Pablo Moreno Gonzalez and Felipe Agustin Zamacona, who described the place as a “black hole” where federal agents operate with impunity.
One anonymous detainee quoted in the suit said, “They treated us like animals, or worse than animals, because no one treats their pets like that.”
10 Days of October Footage Was Deleted
Witnesses in court broke down recounting the chaos: Felipe Agustin Zamacona, a home painter arrested outside a Home Depot while caring for his teenage daughter post-chemotherapy, testified he got no medical attention for scratches on his neck despite pleas.
Another, Ruben Torres Maldonado, echoed the sentiment, saying the air reeked of “sweat and dirty lockers” with floors never cleaned.
Alexa Van Brunt, lead attorney from the MacArthur Justice Center’s Illinois office, hailed the order as a vital first step. “No one should be subjected to the treatment and conditions that individuals at Broadview are currently experiencing,” she said in a statement.
“These are urgent and necessary measures to protect these detainees and preserve their basic human rights. Our democracy is no place for inhumane, unsafe detention conditions.”
The suit also demands documents on detention policies, purchase logs for food and meds, and video footage from inside — though government lawyers admitted 10 days of October footage was deleted while retrieving clips for another case, calling it “suspect,” per plaintiffs’ attorneys.
Broadview Detention Center Flooded with Near-Daily Protests
This isn’t an isolated fight. It’s part of a wave of legal challenges to ICE’s detention practices in Democratic strongholds like Chicago, where the city’s sanctuary policies have long clashed with federal enforcement.
A similar class-action suit hit the Trump administration in August over a New York City holding area, where detainees reported sleeping on cement near toilets without baths for days.
In Chicago, advocates have for months flagged Broadview’s issues, with members of Congress like U.S. Rep. Jesus “Chuy” Garcia attempting — and failing — to tour the site as early as June.
“This has been a processing center, but in fact people who have been in detention there for multiple days have shared with us that it in fact is a detention center,” Garcia said after one denied visit.
The tensions boiled over outside the facility long before the courtroom. Since “Midway Blitz” kicked off in September, ICE has notched over 1,000 arrests in Illinois, per Department of Homeland Security figures, flooding Broadview with detainees and drawing near-daily protests.
Even the Vatican has criticized the centers for refusing communion to migrants.
Demonstrators, including faith leaders and neighborhood organizers, have faced tear gas, pepper balls, rubber bullets, and chemical agents from federal agents and National Guard troops deployed to the area. On September 19, clashes escalated when protesters tried blocking government vans, leading to multiple arrests.
A coalition of news outlets and activists sued over First Amendment violations, with Chicago Newspaper Guild Executive Director Emily Steelhammer testifying that journalists were hit with munitions during coverage.
Activists Want the Detention Center Shut Down
Local leaders aren’t staying silent. Chicago Ald. Byron Sigcho-Lopez joined protesters at one standoff, declaring, “This facility should be shut down, that’s what it comes down to.”
Broadview’s Village Board meeting last week devolved into chaos when Mayor Katrina Thompson abruptly adjourned amid shouts from anti-ICE demonstrators criticizing her for not curbing the protests more aggressively.
The village has launched three criminal probes into federal agents’ actions, while Chicago demanded removal of an 8-foot fence erected around the site, calling it “illegal.”
Illinois’ 2021 Way Forward Act bans state and local jails from overnight immigrant detention, but it doesn’t touch federal sites like Broadview — a loophole critics say ICE is exploiting.
Federal officials push back hard. Department of Justice attorney Jana Brady warned during the hearing that broad injunctions “would effectively halt the government’s ability to enforce immigration laws in Illinois,” arguing among Democratic-led states where Trump’s team has surged officers.
She acknowledged no beds exist because it’s not built for overnights but claimed operations have improved via a “learning curve.”
Tricia McLaughlin’s Comments Don’t Carry Much Weight
DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin insisted Broadview is just a “field office” for brief holds, with detainees getting three meals, water, medical care, and phone access.
“Illegal aliens are only briefly held there for processing before being transferred to a detention facility,” she said, blasting allegations as smears that spike death threats against agents. Religious groups are “more than welcome” to minister inside proper ICE sites, she added, after a Catholic delegation was turned away from Broadview on November 1.
But Tricia McLaughlin has been caught in a series of lies, losing credibility as a spokesperson.
Former Obama aide Tommy Vietor piled on: “Even in an administration filled with bulls–t artists and liars, she stands out for being one of the least credible.”
For instance, in one X thread about an Illinois arrest, she claimed a U.S. woman “rammed” an agent’s vehicle and “violently” kicked officers—yet the woman was released without charges, sparking accusations of “chronic dishonesty.”
Zeteo compiled a dossier of such “falsehoods and distortions” tied to McLaughlin’s defenses of the operations.
Even Pope Leo XIV weighed in from Castel Gandolfo on November 4, urging “deep reflection” on detained migrants’ treatment and stressing their spiritual rights.
Bishop Jose María García-Maldonado offered Mass outside the facility that same weekend, joining a growing chorus of clergy denied entry.
“There is No Debating Denial of Legal Rights”
As Gettleman’s deadline looms for a compliance report by Friday, the stakes feel sky-high. Protests continue, with a Halloween weekend marred by fresh clashes in Evanston and Chicago neighborhoods, where locals report agents snatching people “off the street because of the color of their skin.”
Youth organizer Leslie Cortez testified in a related hearing about an agent pointing a gun at her while she informed day laborers of their rights.
Illinois House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch vowed his caucus would pass resolutions condemning the tactics.
For families like Zamacona’s, waiting in limbo, the order offers a sliver of hope — but the underlying rift between federal might and local resistance shows no sign of easing.
“We can debate immigration policy,” Van Brunt said, “but there is no debating the denial of legal rights and holding those detained in conditions that are not only unlawful but inhumane.
Justice and compassion demand that our clients’ rights be upheld.”
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