Judge hears testimony about crowded cells and overflowing toilets at
Chicago-area immigration site
[November 05, 2025]
By CHRISTINE FERNANDO
CHICAGO (AP) — A judge heard testimony Tuesday about overflowing
toilets, crowded cells, no beds and water that "tasted like sewer” at a
Chicago-area building that serves as a key detention spot for people
rounded up in the Trump administration's immigration crackdown.
People who were held at the building in Broadview, just outside Chicago,
offered rare public accounts about the conditions there as U.S. District
Judge Robert Gettleman considers ordering changes at a site that has
become a flashpoint for protests and confrontations with federal agents.
“I don't want anyone else to live what I lived through,” said Felipe
Agustin Zamacona, 47, an Amazon driver and Mexican immigrant who has
lived in the U.S. for decades.
Zamacona said there were 150 people in a holding cell. Desperate to lie
down to sleep, he said he once took the spot of another man who got up
to use the toilet.
And the water? Zamacona said he tried to drink from a sink but it
“tasted like sewer.”
Judge calls conditions 'cruel'
A lawsuit filed last week accuses the government of denying proper
access to food, water and medical care, and coercing people to sign
documents they don’t understand. Without that knowledge, and without
private communication with lawyers, they have unknowingly relinquished
their rights and faced deportation, the lawsuit alleges.
“This is not an issue of not getting a toilet or a Fiji water bottle,”
attorney Alexa Van Brunt of the MacArthur Justice Center told the judge.
“These are a set of dire conditions that when taken together paint a
harrowing picture.”
The judge began the hearing by saying the allegations in the lawsuit by
MacArthur Justice and the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois
were “disgusting.” Gettleman's opinion got sharper as the day went on,
saying conditions were “unnecessarily cruel.”
“The evidence has been pretty strong that this facility is no longer
just a temporary holding facility. It has really become a prison,” the
judge said.
But people held there, Gettleman noted, “are not convicted felons. These
are civil detainees.”
Feds say improvements were made
Attorney Jana Brady of the Justice Department acknowledged there are no
beds at the Broadview building, just outside Chicago, because it was not
intended to be a long-term detention site.
Authorities have “improved the operations” over the past few months, she
said, adding there has been a “learning curve.”
“The conditions are not sufficiently serious,” Brady told the judge.
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Protesters gather outside an ICE processing facility in the Chicago
suburb of Broadview, Ill., Saturday, Nov. 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Alex
Brandon)
The building has been managed by U.S. Immigration and Customs
Enforcement for decades. But amid the Chicago-area crackdown, it has
been used to process people for detention or deportation.
Greg Bovino, the Border Patrol commander who has led the Chicago
immigration operation, said criticism was unfounded.
“I think they’re doing a great job out there," he told The
Associated Press during an interview this week.
Water bottles as pillows
Testifying with the help of a translator, Pablo Moreno Gonzalez, 56,
said he was arrested last week while waiting to start work. Like
Zamacona, he said he was placed in a cell with 150 other people,
with no beds, blankets, toothbrush or toothpaste.
“It was just really bad. ... It was just too much,” Moreno Gonzalez,
crying, told the judge.
Claudia Carolina Pereira Guevara testified from Honduras, separated
from two children who remain in the U.S. She said she was held at
Broadview for five days in October and recalled using a garbage bag
to clear a clogged toilet.
“They gave us nothing that had to do with cleaning. Absolutely
nothing,” Guevara said.
Another witness, Ruben Torres Maldonado, said he slept on the
concrete floor and would fill water bottles to use as pillows.
The judge said he could make a decision Wednesday on the request for
a restraining order.
For months advocates have raised concerns about conditions at
Broadview, which has drawn scrutiny from members of Congress,
political candidates and activist groups. Lawyers and relatives of
people held there have called it a de facto detention center, saying
up to 200 people have been held at a time without access to legal
counsel.
The Broadview center has also drawn demonstrations, leading to the
arrests of numerous protesters. The demonstrations are at the center
of a separate lawsuit from a coalition of news outlets and
protesters who claim federal agents violated their First Amendment
rights by repeatedly using tear gas and other weapons on them.
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AP reporters Sophia Tareen in Chicago and Ed White in Detroit
contributed to this report.
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