A federal judge issued a restraining order Wednesday forcing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to immediately modify immigration detention conditions at the Broadview processing center near Chicago.
The ruling comes in response to allegations that the Broadview facility – the scene of almost daily protests since the beginning of ‘Operation Midway Blitz’ – operated in an opaque manner, with limited access to legal defense and questionable detention conditions.
Inhumane’ conditions in Illinois immigration center denounced
JUST IN: Judge Robert Gettleman orders the Trump administration to improve conditions at the Chicago-area Broadview ICE facility that has been at the center of protests.
ICE must provide detainees clean mats, hygiene products, showers, 3 daily meals, phone calls and more pic.twitter.com/oc9jIkZFfJ
– Camilo Montoya-Galvez (@camiloreports) November 5, 2025
In his order, effective until November 19, Magistrate Robert Gettleman cited among other irregularities the lack of functioning showers for detainees, comparing the facility to a World War II concentration camp.
It ordered ICE to provide all persons detained at Broadview overnight in any holding room, cell or other space with a clean mat and bedding with sufficient space to sleep.
Each room must be cleaned at least twice a day, and each detainee must have sufficient access to soap, towels, toilet paper, oral hygiene items – including toothbrush and toothpaste – as well as menstrual products in the case of women.
They must ensure that each detainee is able to shower at least every other day, have access to clean toilets, receive three meals a day and have a bottle of drinking water with each meal.
Detainees must receive the prescribed medications they have at the time of their arrest, as well as any others that are given to them by family members or attorneys for their treatment.
What did the judge order?
The judge ordered that ICE must guarantee each detainee access to telephone services to communicate with his or her attorney privately and free of charge, preserving at all times the confidentiality between the two.
It also arranged for all new arrivals to receive, as soon as possible, a list of attorneys offering free legal assistance in English and Spanish, along with interpretation services when necessary.
In addition, the ruling states that all Broadview detainees must be entered into ICE’s Online Locator System so that their location can be accurately identified from the moment they enter the facility.
The immigration authorities shall not alter or falsify the content of the documents issued to the detainees, which shall always include a Spanish translation and shall be presented with the necessary time and facilities to be read and understood.
During a court hearing on Tuesday, several detainees denounced overcrowded, unsanitary and degrading conditions in the two-story building which, far from operating as a pre-deportation processing center, in practice functions as a prison.
In their defense, attorneys for the federal government claimed at the hearing that the facility’s six temporary holding cells are cleaned daily and blamed an Illinois state law for overcrowding.
“Illinois is unique in that it has laws that prevent the detention of undocumented individuals. We cannot transfer them to other county or state facilities,” stated Assistant U.S. Attorney Jana Brady.
Judge Gettleman responded that it is “obviously unconstitutional” to force someone to sleep on the floor next to a toilet.
The conditions would be considered unconstitutional even in the context of prisons for convicted criminals, but these are not convicted criminals. They are civilian detainees
Robert Gettleman
With information from EFE
