Maryland Ramps Up Legal Action Against Federal Immigration Facilities

By William J. Ford, Maryland Matters

Maryland doubled down on its legal challenge to federal immigration policy Tuesday, suing for records in its probe of conditions at a Baltimore detention center while seeking an emergency order to stop construction at a planned Williamsport facility.

Attorney General Anthony Brown (D) filed suit in federal court Tuesday to force Immigration and Customs Enforcement to turn over documents the state is seeking as part of its investigation of “unlawful conditions” at the immigrant holding facility at the George H. Fallon Building in downtown Baltimore.

Those conditions include allegations of overcrowding, unsanitary conditions and lack of medical care, among other claims. But ICE has refused to turn over documents, “relying on boilerplate objections that the requested material is burdensome, overbroad, or irrelevant,” according to the state’s lawsuit.

Also Tuesday, Brown filed a request for an emergency injunction “to immediately halt any construction or retrofitting of a warehouse near Williamsport” that ICE quietly purchased and plans to turn into a detention center for 1,500 people. The emergency request comes a little more than two weeks after the state sued to block the Trump administration’s “unlawful decision” to pursue the Williamsport facility.

Since buying the 825,000-square-foot facility in January, ICE has moved “with unrelenting speed” on the project and on Friday awarded a $113 million contract to KVG LLC of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, “to immediately retrofit the warehouse into this massive immigration detention facility.” The emergency injunction is needed to stop work while the state’s larger lawsuit against the project proceeds, Brown said.

Maryland lawmakers make surprise visit to Baltimore ICE facility

“Federal immigration authorities are barreling past their legal obligations in an effort to build an immigration detention facility as quickly as they can. Once construction begins, the damage to Maryland’s waterways, protected species, and communities cannot be undone,” Brown said in a statement Tuesday evening on the emergency injunction request.

Representatives from the Department of Homeland Security and ICE did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday.

The lawsuit against the ICE facility in Baltimore claims the agency has exceeded the holding center capacity of 56 people, detaining more than 120 people in holding rooms, or cells, “not designed or equipped for sleeping, or to provide food, water, or medical care for extended periods of time.”

The suit said the rooms were designed to hold people for up to 12 hours, but some immigrants said they had been there for more than 10 days, during which they were treated like “animals.” The windowless rooms have no showers and one toilet for 4o or 50 people, the suit says.

During a news conference Tuesday morning, Brown gave other examples of unfit care at the facility. One person with a brain tumor didn’t receive medical treatment for more than 10 days, Brown said, while a woman in the facility became so distressed from the conditions she repeatedly banged her head against a wall.

“Every one of these detainees is someone’s parent, or someone’s child, someone’s spouse, someone’s neighbor, someone’s friend,” Brown said. “They are human beings, and every one of them has been trapped in a nightmare. These are not isolated incidents, and this is not new.”

The state began an investigation of the holding facility in January, but Brown said the federal government has “stonewalled us at every turn. They rejected our subpoena outright with boilerplate objections and no real answers.” The lawsuit asks the court to compel release of the information the state is seeking.

Besides ICE, the suit also names Todd Lyons, who leads the agency, the Department of Homeland Security and its former Secretary Kristi Noem, who was fired Thursday by President Donald Trump (R).

The lawsuit comes just days after U.S. District Judge Julie Rubin approved a class-action suit Friday on behalf of detainees at the Baltimore facility and ordered ICE to:

• Limit detainees at the facility to no more than 56 at a time;
• Conduct medical screenings for each person detained within 12 hours of arrival; and
• Clean the rooms at least once a day, provide hygiene supplies and access to medication upon request within 24 hours.

According to Rubin’s 67-page opinion, the Trump administration argued that a preliminary injunction in the case would impede its progress to conduct immigration enforcement. But Rubin disagreed, writing that her order “merely would require that it be done within the confines of the Constitution.”

Brown’s lawsuit also comes a day after members of Maryland’s congressional delegation traveled to Baltimore and made a surprise visit. No detainees were inside the building at the time, but Rep. Glenn Ivey (D-4th) said the conditions inside aren’t better than “the shelter space” where he went to adopt dogs.

Senate President Bill Ferguson (D-Baltimore City) joined federal and local officials outside the building Monday for a press conference after the delegation members’ tour. Ferguson welcomed Brown’s filing of a lawsuit Tuesday over conditions at the facility.

“We’re supposed to be the beacon on the hill where we want people to come because of the promise of opportunity and freedom,” he said. “Instead, what we’re seeing is an administration that’s focused on using fear and terror to intimidate…. At the end of the day, what we’re seeing by the federal administration is something where cruelty is the objective.”

Maryland House Minority Leader Jason Buckel (R-Allegany) said he was not surprised by the lawsuit, the latest in dozens filed by Brown against the Trump administration.

“He’s just filing lawsuits every day for political purposes, rather than to better the lives of Marylanders,” Buckel said. “I’m not sure what the basis for a lawsuit would be to suggest that the state somehow can file a lawsuit about detainees who, by their definition, probably are not citizens of the United States, nor legal citizens of Maryland. To try to enforce something that I just don’t see any basis for.”

Maryland Matters is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501(c)(3) public charity. Maryland Matters maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Steve Crane for questions: scrane@marylandmatters.org. Follow Maryland Matters on Facebook and Twitter.