DHS Disputes Federal Judge’s Order to Improve Baltimore ICE Facility Conditions

The Department of Homeland Security has firmly rejected a federal judge’s ruling that conditions at its Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) processing facility in Baltimore are “unhygienic, unsanitary,” and unconstitutional.

In a statement to Fox News Digital on Monday, a DHS spokesperson disputed the court’s findings about “subprime” conditions and overcrowding, calling them “false.”

“Illegal aliens in custody are provided food, water, blankets, and hygiene products,” the spokesperson said, claiming that ICE “has higher detention standards than most U.S. prisons that hold actual U.S. citizens,” including access to “comprehensive” medical care.

The statement came hours after U.S. District Judge Julie Rubin, a Biden appointee, issued a 67-page preliminary injunction ordering ICE to either drastically improve conditions at its Baltimore processing center or find a new facility to “humanely” and legally hold migrants before transferring them to longer-term detention centers.

In her ruling, Judge Rubin meticulously detailed what she described as egregious conditions alleged by plaintiffs’ lawyers over the past 10 months, including squalid holding areas, severe overcrowding, and inadequate medical care that could potentially lead to “liability issues, or in the worst-case scenario, fatalities.”

“The debated issue here is not defendants’ legitimate governmental interest; it is that defendants apparently dispense with even rudimentary decent, humane treatment of civil detainees, and so too their constitutional rights as a result,” Rubin wrote.

The judge determined that conditions in Baltimore are “unlawfully punitive” and reflect a “deliberate indifference to the health, safety, and medical needs” of detainees, violating Fifth Amendment due process protections. Rubin also specifically rejected the notion that ICE detainees and undocumented immigrants are not entitled to due process, citing Supreme Court precedent under Zadvydas v. Davis.

“These conditions woefully fail to comport with ‘contemporary standards of decency,'” the judge wrote, noting that detainees were “stuffed into unclean cells by the dozens, without basic hygiene essentials, while exposed to a virtually open unclean toilet.”

Particularly troubling were allegations that individuals with serious medical conditions such as diabetes, high blood pressure, HIV, leukemia, and broken bones were denied medications or medical attention. Court records showed that between February and September 2025, just eight out of 3,250 detainees at the Baltimore facility had been transported to a hospital for medical needs.

DHS defended its practices, insisting that migrants detained at the facility receive “comprehensive” health care, including “medical, dental, and mental health services as available, and access to medical appointments and 24-hour emergency care.”

“This is the best healthcare that many aliens have received in their entire lives,” the spokesperson added.

This is not the first time federal judges have ordered U.S. immigration officials to improve conditions at ICE facilities during Trump’s second term. In August, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan issued an emergency order requiring ICE to address allegations of filthy, overcrowded cells at a New York City processing facility, followed by a preliminary injunction the next month.

Similarly, a federal judge in Minnesota recently issued a temporary restraining order requiring ICE to grant detainees at its Whipple Federal Building holding center access to counsel, attorney-client visits, and advance notice before transfers out of state.

The Trump administration has not yet indicated whether it will appeal Judge Rubin’s ruling. DHS officials maintained that detention “is a choice,” encouraging undocumented immigrants to “take control of their departure with the CBP Home App” and noting that the U.S. “is offering illegal aliens $2,600 and a free flight to self-deport.”

The ongoing legal battles highlight tensions between the administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement policies and judicial oversight ensuring constitutional protections for all persons in U.S. custody, regardless of immigration status.