Immigration officials in Maryland are skirting scrutiny after a federal judge threw out a lawsuit challenging conditions inside Baltimore’s downtown ICE holding facility and lawmakers were initially denied entry to investigate reports of inhumane conditions.

Despite being allowed a one-hour visit into the holding facility in the George H. Fallon Federal Building weeks after they were first denied access, Maryland’s congressional members said they were left with more questions than answers about how detained people were being treated.

While lawmakers have focused the national spotlight on conditions in Baltimore’s downtown ICE holding facility, attorneys from the Amica Center for Immigration Rights — a nonprofit organization providing legal and social services to immigrants seeking status in the U.S. — filed a class-action suit in early May arguing that inhumane conditions were widespread among people detained there. 

A late July hearing would have considered suspending use of the facility while the full case played out, but Maryland U.S. District Judge Julie Rubin denied the class certification and sent lawyers back to the drawing board.

“The hearing would have confirmed what we have known… which is that the conditions there are absolutely impermissible under the law and under the Constitution,” said Amelia Dagen, lead litigator in the class action suit. “There is a special weight to hearing it from people who have experienced those and endured those conditions.”

The lawsuit represents two immigrant women who were held in a freezing, windowless room without access to basic hygiene or medical care. The lawsuit had the support of Maryland Attorney General Anthony G. Brown, who wrote in a brief that ICE’s actions violated both state and constitutional protections: 

“All Marylanders, regardless of immigration status, are entitled to be treated with dignity and respect for their constitutional and statutory rights… These conditions are contrary to the public interest and the interests of the State of Maryland, and they are unacceptable in a society bound by the rule of law.”

Dagen and her team said they would continue seeking class certification and a preliminary injunction to prevent future detainment at the Fallon facility, “both of which remain critical as people continue to be held in the unconstitutional conditions at the Baltimore Hold Rooms.” They are also still seeking the release of the two women — one woman is now being held in New Mexico and the other was sent to a facility in Louisiana, hundreds of miles away from their Maryland homes, families, and legal support. The distance makes communication with their attorneys, loved ones, and community advocates far more difficult. 

Limited access to phones, language interpretation, and legal resources means that even though they have avoided immediate deportation, their due process is being hampered. In many facilities, phone access is expensive, requires a credit card, and lacks privacy — obstacles that undermine both legal preparation and emotional support. Their ability to participate actively in their own defense becomes sharply curtailed and they are essentially in detention with no clear end date. 

In many facilities, phone access is expensive, requires a credit card, and lacks privacy — obstacles that undermine both legal preparation and emotional support.

In some ways, the team argues, this prolonged confinement replaces one set of inhumane conditions with another, deepening feelings of isolation, compounding mental health challenges, and exposing them to a new cycle of neglect. 

The class-action lawsuit argued that ICE routinely kept people in these holding cells for longer than the 12-hour maximum allowed under ICE’s own policies. Detainees were allegedly denied food, water, medical care, privacy, hygiene, sleep, and access to legal counsel. The lawsuit argued that these conditions violated the plaintiffs’ due process rights and constituted unlawful agency action under the Administrative Procedure Act. 

The first plaintiff, who had been held in the facility for over five days at the time the lawsuit was filed, lives with Type 2 diabetes. According to the complaint, she went more than 24 hours without access to her medication and was unable to check her blood sugar levels, which she typically monitors three times a day. She reportedly skipped meals in the holding cells out of concern they would spike her blood sugar —a fear cemented by her inability to test her sugar levels. 

The second plaintiff, who had been held in the facility for three days, suffers from a thyroid condition and had not received her prescribed daily medication during the entire time she was in custody, according to the complaint.

ICE representatives from the Baltimore facility denied all allegations of inhumane treatment.

Amica had been hearing about unlawful conditions since February, according to Dagen, and was seeking out victims to represent, but detainees had often been moved from the holding facility before they could speak to them.

“It’s not detrimental to the long-term viability,” Dagen said about the judge’s decision to deny the initial class certification. “There is a class here and we are now strategizing on how to best document that moving forward so we can raise this issue before the court.”

“Unfortunately, individuals who are detained in the ICE holding cells will continue to suffer and be forced to endure these conditions that are unconstitutional and unlawful. So that is a definitely disappointing element of the decision, in the meantime, while we gather other evidence and bring the issue back up to the court.”

Although the case was not dismissed outright, the court’s refusal to grant class status marked a major setback for the plaintiffs. If they do not receive class certification, the broader claims about ICE’s systemic mistreatment of detainees in Baltimore may be much harder to litigate. Still, operating as if they will not receive the certification, legal advocates have continued to pursue the case through individual claims and further developments from detainees.

The canceled court hearing, along with the secrecy around the holding facility, point to a growing accountability vacuum around ICE operations in Baltimore, raising alarms among advocates, legal experts, and members of Congress alike.

“Lack of oversight, lack of accountability, concealment, terror, an absolute abandonment of ethical justice, an abandonment of transparency,” said Carla Paisley, director of Southeast Community Development Corporation, a nonprofit committed to growing and developing Southeast Baltimore from the inside out through a ‘community-first’ lens. “You don’t have to hide what is not shameful.” 

In a city where federal power often operates with opacity and accountability is often resisted until advocates force it into the light, it’s no surprise that the Baltimore ICE facility is acting as a frontline test for federal accountability under this new administration. 

In a city where federal power often operates with opacity and accountability is often resisted until advocates force it into the light, it’s no surprise that the Baltimore ICE facility is acting as a frontline test for federal accountability under this new administration.

Baltimore has for decades been a test site for heavy-handed policing and surveillance. From the infamous “zero tolerance” policing in the ’90s and early 2000s to secret aerial surveillance programs in the 2010s to ongoing struggles over police accountability after Freddie Gray’s 2015 death in custody and the very recent police-involved killings of three community residents, residents are familiar with overpolicing without accountability. 

The Writ of Habeas Corpus — a federal order which says someone cannot be detained by any police force without cause or explanation — that the Trump Administration now wants to suspend is one that was first suspended by President Lincoln in Baltimore during the Civil War. 

ICE’s refusal to let Maryland’s congressional delegates inspect the holding facility as they see fit falls into this throughline: Baltimore often finds itself at the sharp end of federal and state power, while at the same time being denied democratic accountability and local control — exemplified by the decades-long state control of the Baltimore City Police Department. 

“This isn’t only about immigration,” Paisley said. “It’s about whether any of us have any right to stand up for community and hold powerful institutions accountable when they operate in our backyard and in ways that harm [our community].”

This post was originally published on The Real News Network.