Local immigration attorneys and relatives of people detained by immigration agents in recent weeks are raising alarms over what they say are dire and inhumane conditions at ICE’s field office in Northern Virginia.
The conditions include one meal a day that consists of a single burrito, some 40 to 90 people at a time crammed into a single room with no beds, and some detainees held as long as seven days with no ability to bathe, according to accounts shared with MSNBC by attorneys and a family member of a person being detained.
One undocumented immigrant who was arrested alongside his father during the second week of Trump’s D.C. takeover told MSNBC that he had spent an entire day in custody in ICE’s Washington Field Office in Chantilly, Virginia, and was given a single meal — a bean burrito. He is now out of custody and attempting to return to work.
“They just give us one burrito with water,” said the immigrant, who already had an active immigration case when he was picked up. His father spent at least six days at the Chantilly ICE office and also was given one burrito per day, and the crowding was so severe that his father had to sleep sitting up at times, the son told MSNBC.
Holding rooms are made of bullet-proof glass, ensuring detainees are visible at all times. Aside from the concrete floor, there are some concrete benches, and sinks next to toilets.
“I can’t imagine how he feels right now, I can’t imagine how hungry he is right now,” said the son, whose father has since been transferred out of state. When he last spoke to his father while he was still at Chantilly, his father had a fever.
People are not getting enough food. And they’re sleeping on the floor, which is the cement floor.
Liana Montecinos, ImmIGRATION ATTORNEY
“He told me, ‘We don’t have rights, right here, they treat us like a dog,’” said the son, who works in construction with his father. “What I really think is they are trying to break us — broken soul, broke our mind — and break everything from us.”
Two attorneys also told MSNBC that, in many cases, people held at the Chantilly facility are not being allowed to see their lawyers for several days.
“We’re learning about dangerous, rapidly degenerating conditions at temporary holding facilities like the one in Chantilly, Virginia, where ICE is holding up to 80 people in a single room for more than a week at a time with no access to a lawyer, medical care or even basic hygiene,” said Sophia Gregg, senior immigrants’ rights attorney for ACLU Virginia. “ICE must follow the law, not violate people’s civil rights and civil liberties — or physical safety — to advance an inhumane political agenda.”
Gregg added that the administration’s deportation agenda “has created a humanitarian crisis in ICE facilities.”
“People are not getting enough food,” said Liana Montecinos, an immigration attorney and co-chair of the pro-bono and citizenship committee of the American Immigration Lawyers Association’s D.C. chapter, who is collecting accounts from lawyers involved. “And they’re sleeping on the floor, which is the cement floor.”
“When we reach out to the Washington Field Office, to Chantilly, the phones get hung up on us, or we don’t receive a response at all,” said Montecinos. “They feel entitled to basically disappear the immigrant and treat them inhumanely and really waive their due process rights.”
When asked about the accounts, a senior Department of Homeland Security official denied allegations of inhumane conditions at the field office.
“No detainees are staying at the Chantilly facility for seven days or over the legal limit,” the official said in a statement. “The Chantilly field office is at 37 percent capacity — nowhere near maximum capacity. Detainees are receiving three meals a day, have access to phones, showers, legal representation, blankets, and medical care.”
The official added that some of the detainees processed at Chantilly include “Tren de Aragua gang members, child rapists [and] drug dealers.”
ACLU’s Gregg said DHS’ denial of extreme conditions “conflicts with the information provided to ACLU-VA from an ICE officer at the Washington Field Office.”
“We have also heard directly from people there and their families that people are only provided one meal per day, no showers, and no access to medications,” Gregg added. “And we are also hearing of excessively hot temperatures inside the holding rooms and illness spreading.”
Chantilly is not the first facility where overcrowding and a lack of basic food and hygiene have been reported. Democratic members of Congress sued the Trump administration in July over access to ICE detention and processing centers after multiple lawmakers were barred from entering. The Trump administration is facing recent class-action lawsuits in New York and Baltimore over conditions inside two facilities. Earlier this month, the judge in the New York case ordered the administration to quickly fix the conditions at the ICE office in Lower Manhattan.
But Chantilly is now the latest facility to face criticism, and it appears to be a direct result of the administration’s ramped-up immigration arrests in Washington since Aug. 11, according to the immigration attorneys and family members of those detained who spoke to MSNBC.
Chantilly is an office-park-type holding facility with what’s known as “hold rooms,” not a designated long-term facility. Until this June, it was ICE policy that detainees be held no more than 12 hours, according to attorneys working in the Washington metropolitan area and former Department of Homeland Security officials. But in June, ICE issued a nationwide memo disclosed in a court filing, declaring that detainees in a holding facility could be held “up to, but not exceeding, 72 hours, absent exceptional circumstances.”
As clients are ultimately released or moved to long-term detention facilities farther into Virginia like Caroline or Farmville or out of state, some attorneys have recently been able to make contact.
ICE rules for holding facilities stipulate that “detainees are provided a meal at least every six hours,” according to multiple ICE policy memos, including a 2014 operational memo signed by Tom Homan, who at the time served as ICE’s executive associate director of Enforcement and Removal Operations. Now, as the president’s border czar, Homan is one of the leaders of Trump’s deportation agenda. “These facilities are not designed for long-term holding or long term care,” said Claire Trickler-McNulty, a former senior ICE official during the Obama, first Trump and Biden administrations. “Because of the very short nature of custody, most holding facilities don’t have the ability to provide for bathing or in person visitation. They don’t have access to recreation, access to attorneys, access to medical care.” The kind of crowding at Chantilly reported by attorneys, Trickler-McNulty said, “would certainly raise for me concerns about the safety of the individuals in there.” Another immigrant who spoke to MSNBC, the son of a Venezuelan immigrant currently being detained, said his father was made to sleep outside in a field the first night he was in custody. His father came to the U.S. roughly three years ago and was paroled into the country. He has a government-issued ID and no criminal history, according to his family. Another immigrant who spoke to MSNBC, the son of a Venezuelan immigrant currently being detained, said his father was made to sleep outside in a field the first night he was in custody. “I don’t know why they arrested my dad, because he has [temporary protected status], he has pending asylum, he has a work permit, he has everything that he’s supposed to have,” said the son. The undocumented immigrants who spoke to MSNBC feared that if their names were used ICE and the White House would retaliate against their family members still in detention or launch smear campaigns against them similar to the ongoing messaging campaign against the El Salvadoran national Kilmar Abrego Garcia. In March, the administration wrongly deported Abrego to El Salvador’s notorious CECOT prison without allowing him due process rights under the Constitution. Since he’s been returned to the United States, Abrego is facing criminal charges of human smuggling in Tennessee, a case his lawyers are seeking to dismiss on grounds of “vindictive and selective prosecution.” This week, a federal judge temporarily blocked the administration from re-deporting him. But the Trump administration has continued to mock Abrego in social media posts that now call him “Uganda man,” and posted a video of him in chains being walked through an ICE processing office. That kind of guilty-before-proven innocent messaging from the White House, Homeland Security, ICE and right-wing media is what immigration attorneys say they fear will happen to their clients. Immigration attorneys, advocates, and undocumented immigrants who spoke to MSNBC said the situation inside facilities like Chantilly have grown increasingly worse since the president surged law enforcement into D.C. More than 1,000 people have been arrested during Trump’s takeover of the city — nearly half of those arrests are immigration-related, according to the White House, which has not provided a total number of immigration arrests, or a breakdown of names and charges. DHS has put out press releases “highlighting some of the worst of the worst” of those arrested in Washington, who the department says is a mix of undocumented immigrants who were either charged or convicted of crimes like burglary, assault and kidnapping. Federal agents from more than 13 agencies, including Homeland Security Investigations, FBI, DEA and Customs and Border Protection, have fanned out across the city to assist ICE as the administration arrests suspected undocumented immigrants. “Chantilly has become this black box where people are being sent after they are being arrested in the streets of D.C.,” said Amy Fischer, core organizer with Migrant Solidarity Mutual Aid. “The situation is getting worse by the day. It is an office; it is not intended to detain people.” “I can’t imagine how he feels right now, I can’t imagine how hungry he is right now,” said the son, whose father has since been transferred out of state. When he last spoke to his father while he was still at Chantilly, his father had a fever.
Maya Rosenberg
Maya Rosenberg is a Desk Assistant based in Washington, D.C.
Laura Barrón-López covers the White House for MS NOW. Recommended
