Women Detained in ‘Inhumane’ Baltimore Holding Room Get Deportation Suspended

On Wednesday, a federal judge briefly stopped the deportation of two immigrants by the federal government. This was after the women’s lawyers filed a federal class action lawsuit saying the women were held in a downtown Baltimore holding room for several days in “unlawfully and inhumane conditions.”

At a court hearing, U.S. District Judge Julie R. Rubin said that her decision did not cover the whole country and only affected the two women named in the case.

Ian Austin Rose, the free lawyer who was defending the two women, said that he had talked to both of them and they were “OK” after the hearing.

The Amica Center for Immigrant Rights and the National Immigration Project filed the case earlier this month on behalf of two women, one from Guatemala and one from El Salvador. Their lawyers say the women were legally living in Maryland.

According to the lawsuit, both women were given “withholding of removal” by an immigration judge many years ago. Their lawyers are now asking that they be freed from the custody of the government Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE). According to their lawyers, both women were going to be sent back to Mexico after being sent by ICE to holding centers in New Jersey and Colorado over the weekend.

Supporters said that if those plans went through, the women’s legal fight over the conditions they lived in would have finished with their deportations. Rose says that one of the women was locked up for more than 60 hours and the other for more than two days.

The unnamed women, whose names are written in the case as N.N. and R.G., were detained by ICE on May 7 and 8, respectively, during routine check-ins. A lawsuit says that N.N. is the mother of a U.S. citizen and a legal permanent resident, or “green card” holder; and R.G. is the mother of two U.S. citizen children.

Councilman Mark Parker went to the emergency hearing and said later that this was a big step that made sure the conditions in the holding room would be fixed.

“There is no case if they aren’t here.” Parker said that ICE is acting like there is “no rule of law or recourse” and that there is no way to weigh the pros and cons.

The government Department of Homeland Security said in a statement released Wednesday that ICE was committed to making sure that people in custody are kept in safe, secure, and humane places.

It has been standard practice for a long time to provide full medical care to all aliens as soon as they are taken into ICE custody, the statement said. It includes medical, dental, and mental health screenings within 12 hours of arriving at each detention center, a full health assessment within 14 days of joining ICE custody or arriving at a facility, and the ability to make medical appointments and get emergency care at any time.

The claim refers to a policy memo from January 2024 that lists different requirements for these kinds of holding rooms.

It says that agency workers should keep an eye on inmates “sufficiently,” feed them at least every six hours, and make sure they always have access to water and a bathroom. It also includes special places for kids and pregnant women to stay. It says that people should not be locked up in holding rooms for more than 12 hours “unless there are exceptional circumstances.”

The claim says that detainees are fed “small rations of food” like sandwiches, military pouches, or instant noodle cups for dinner and are forced to sleep in cold rooms with the lights on.

The claim says that the Guatemalan woman, who was only named N.N. in the suit, was not able to get her diabetes medicine for at least one day. It says that she only got water to drink at mealtimes and that when she asked for more, “the ICE officers often ignored her.” The Salvadoran woman, identified as R.G., was only given a used jacket to keep warm after the person she was held with left the building.

In March, The revealed that people being held by ICE had been spending multiple days at the facility in a room that lawyers said is not equipped for overnight detention. This showed that there were problems at the holding room.

One of the women had a panic attack while she was in the holding room, the claim says. “Her lawyer asked ICE to let a medical professional examine her.” There wasn’t enough room for this at the Baltimore Holding Rooms, so ICE “refused to do so,” the claim says.

The other woman had been held for 36 hours when the immigrant groups’ lawyers went to court, they said. That woman had not been to the doctor or been given her daily prescription for her thyroid problem.

These women were given “arbitrary and punitive treatment” by ICE because of their medical needs. The claim says that this is one way that ICE fails to meet the basic human needs of people who are held in the Baltimore Holding Rooms for days on end.

Withholding of removal, the same protection from deportation that Kilmar Abrego Garcia had been given, would stop the federal government from legally sending them back to their home countries of Guatemala and El Salvador. However, they could still try to find a third country that would agree to take them as deportees.

The American Immigration Council says this doesn’t happen very often, in part because countries don’t have much of a reason to agree. But during Trump’s second term, some countries, like El Salvador, Costa Rica, and even Libya, have decided to take in people who have been deported.

Maryland’s senators have been asking questions about the conditions in the holding rooms.

The most current reports sent to the office of Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen show that the average time spent in jail is now 1.4 days. His office said in a statement this month that that was “a notable decrease, but still” longer than the 12-hour limit under ICE rules.

Some people who keep a close eye on aliens who have been arrested say that the length of stays may be getting longer.

“We have kept hearing that ICE is still holding people at BHR for more than 12 hours.” Adina Appelbaum, program director for the Amica Center for Immigrant Rights, a regional charity that helps ICE detainees get lawyers, said, “It looks like the time period is starting to get longer again.”

ICE usually takes people they arrest in Maryland to its downtown Hopkins Plaza field office, which is only a block from CFG Arena, to be processed before sending them to a jail that has a bed available. Long-term prison centers, on the other hand, have been running out of beds more and more often.

The agency’s own rules say that people shouldn’t have to stay in a waiting room for more than 12 hours.

An email that The Banner looked at shows that ICE agents told local immigration lawyers that they were not required to follow this rule. In March, agency officials said that the rule about time limits doesn’t even apply in Baltimore.

An expert on trade and immigration policy at the Council on Foreign Relations, Edward Alden, said that the “fundamental logistical restriction” is what is stopping the Trump administration from carrying out its threat of mass deportations.

Alden said that the government has tried to get around the problem by doing things like increasing the use of expedited removal, which lets people be sent back to their home country without having to go before an immigration judge. He also said that the government is asking Congress for more money so that they can add more beds and agents to the prison system.

Alden said, “That will still take time even if there is the money.” The prison system is too crowded for them to reach their removal goals, so they can’t even come close to them.

Staff members for Van Hollen and Maryland Sen. Angela Alsobrooks visited the Baltimore holding room in question in March and said it was in “appalling” shape. Lawyers said they got reports that back up what is being said in the current case.

After their visit, the staff of the Maryland senators said they didn’t see an infirmary or medical staff. They also said there was no food service contract, so inmates had to make do with foil blankets and inflatable beds.

But ICE did not answer the senators’ follow-up questions by the end of April, which was the limit set by the senators. Van Hollen is now going to send Secretary Kristi Noem of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security written questions that will be kept on file.

“The Trump Administration is required by law to make sure that people in its custody are treated in a safe and humane way.” “Putting people in jail in bad conditions like those at the Baltimore ICE field office is wrong and doesn’t make our country safer,” Van Hollen told The Banner in an email.

The senators asked that the 12-hour relief be looked at again and also asked ICE if they have any other plans to help with the overcrowding.

Reports say that ICE detention centers are full because the Trump administration is trying to deport the most undocumented foreigners the country has ever had.