Judge Slaps Down ICE’s Mass Arrests, Torches Detention Conditions

A federal judge issued a permanent injunction Thursday on conditions at ICE’s New York City office at Federal 26 Plaza, finding that officers had subjected immigrant detainees to overcrowded rooms, unsanitary conditions, insufficient food and water, as well as inadequate sleeping conditions, medical care, and legal counsel.

“For want of sufficient appropriate places to put them, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (‘ICE’) has confined many of those arrested in overcrowded, squalid, and degrading rooms for excessive periods of time,” wrote District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan in his ruling.

Before the summer of 2025, ICE generally held fewer than 10 detainees at a time in a series of “hold rooms” on the tenth floor of the agency’s offices. “Toward the end of May 2025, however, that number increased to the point where ICE typically was holding between forty and seventy detainees in the hold rooms at any given time,” Kaplan wrote.

Detainees were kept in these conditions for “far longer than 72 hours,” the judge stated. One person who was detained for nine and a half days said they were held with 70 other men, in a room so small that they “were all bunched up.”

ICE did not offer detainees cots, pillows, or blankets. Instead, people were forced to sleep on aluminum or mylar sheets on hard concrete floors. One detainee claimed the air conditioning made the room feel like an “icebox,” while another said that staying in such a crowded room was “like being in an oven.” The lights were kept on at all hours, and many did not have the space even to lie down.

ICE maintained that detainees were offered three meals a day, but detainees reported that they were offered only one meal a day or sometimes no food at all, and they were always hungry. The judge claimed that ICE officials had attempted to “sanitize the record after the fact.”

Kaplan also found that detainees were kept in unsanitary conditions and denied basic hygiene and privacy. They were kept in the same clothes they’d been arrested in, given no way to bathe or brush their teeth, and had access to only a semi-private toilet. One woman reported that she had her period for five days, but her entire room was only offered two menstrual pads during that same period.

“Thus, despite some attempts by ICE personnel to sanitize the record, the facts show that the living conditions in the hold rooms through the summer of 2025 were anything but sanitary,” the judge stated. “They were woefully inadequate, and detainees were denied basic privacy.”

Kaplan also found that ICE’s medical precautions and care was “inadequate” and access to legal counsel was also “severely restricted.”

This latest ruling should raise serious alarms, especially in light of ICE’s recent policy to stop sharing the locations of thousands of immigrants who received a final deportation order.

President Trump’s press ban left his meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping without any U.S. TV pool coverage, giving Chinese state media more access to the White House than American press.

Despite a court order Wednesday night restoring White House access to Politico, MS NOW, and CNN, their journalists were still barred from the grounds Thursday morning. As a result, the entire White House TV press pool, which includes Fox, ABC, CBS, NBC, and CNN, continued their boycott from broadcasting the president live, and were joined by White House photojournalists.

“Although a court decision restored media access to CNN, Politico & MS NOW earlier this morning, we are currently without a network pool camera. If anything changes, I’ll send out an update,” White House print pool reporter Kerry Picket said.

As a result, China Global Television Network was one of the few outlets to have video of Xi’s arrival at the White House, a reminder of when Trump in his first term barred the U.S. press pool from the building while allowing Russian state media to take pictures of Trump with Russian officials.

After the outlets were barred Thursday morning, they immediately notified the court. U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly gave the White House until 12:30 p.m. to explain the continued ban. The White House responded just before the deadline, claiming in a court document that access was restored to Politico, CNN, and MS NOW as of 9:55 a.m.

That wasn’t the case, as Politico, CNN, and MS NOW only reported being allowed onto White House grounds around noon, long after Trump’s press conference with Xi. Per Kelly’s order, Trump has to allow their access for at least two weeks while the court case continues.

Excavation work has already begun at the proposed site of Donald Trump’s 250-foot “Triumphal Arch.”

Construction crews were spotted at Memorial Circle on Columbia Island Thursday morning, surrounded by fences and accompanied by a small drilling rig, according to photographs captured by a local resident and published by Popville.

The work did not begin without warning. Earlier this month, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum shared on X that the agency was “preparing to start, over the next two-week period, the excavation work necessary for the Great Triumphal Arch and Military Observation Deck.”

“Over 70 major cities/capitals around the world, from London, Paris and Rome to Madrid, Athens and New Delhi, all showcase beautiful arches. Interestingly, Washington, DC, is the only major Western capital without an arch,” Burgum said in a separate post. “Now after 125 years of waiting, the most powerful capital in the world will be home of the most spectacular and beautiful arch of them all!”

The Trump administration has claimed that it doesn’t need congressional approval to begin the $250 million undertaking because of a broad project authorization provided in 1925 to build the nearby Arlington Memorial Bridge and its surrounding features.

But that plan did not include a towering arch. Instead, historical records obtained by The Washington Post in July revealed that the original design for the bridge included smaller columns on either side of the bridge.

Opponents to the arch’s construction, including a coalition of prominent Democrats, have argued that the administration needs to obtain new congressional approval before starting construction, lest the executive office tread on Congress’s authority.

“This is a straightforward issue of who’s in charge,” Maine Senator Angus King (who is an independent but caucuses with Democrats) told the Post in March.

If it moves forward, the arch will physically situate Trump’s legacy between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery, interrupting a hallowed symbolic conversation between the president who ended slavery and the soldiers who sacrificed their lives in order to do so.

Trump has obsessed over his legacy throughout his second term, a fixation easily illustrated by the long list of vanity projects he’s cooked up instead of fulfilling the difficult job of steering the nation.

Beyond the arch, Trump has razed the White House East Wing, started construction on a $600 million ballroom (the price of which keeps growing), gutted the Lincoln bathroom, transformed the Palm Room from a lush green foyer into a sterile lobby, and mowed down Jackie Kennedy Onassis’s famous Rose Garden.

The administration also spent more than $16 million on an unsuccessful and rushed renovation of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, took a sledgehammer to the Harry S. Truman Bowling Alley, indiscriminately axed trees in the Washington area, and destroyed the Kennedy Center.

Republicans are literally running away from questions about Mitch McConnell.

Kentucky Senator Rand Paul refused to acknowledge RawStory’s Adam Nichols when the digital site’s editor in chief asked about McConnell’s ability to remain in office, rushing into an elevator while he avoided eye contact. Mississippi Senator Roger Wicker ran the same playbook, simply muttering, “Oh man,” while he walked away from Nichols. As the elevator doors closed, Wicker relented and said that McConnell is a “great guy.”

Nebraska Senator Deb Fischer responded—sort of. She glared at Nichols when he inquired about McConnell’s ability to serve out the rest of his term.

“I think he is, yes,” Fischer said.

“He hasn’t been speaking at all in the media, hasn’t done a 10- or 15-second video—” continued Nichols.

“Does he need to? I don’t think he needs to,” retorted Fischer before ducking into an elevator. “You know he was here for a Farm Bill vote, and he voted. People are saying he didn’t respond—no, he voted. And he was very quiet to begin with.”

McConnell suddenly reappeared at the Senate last week after an unexplained three-month absence. But his grand return also faced enormous backlash, as the American public witnessed—for the first time since the 84-year-old Kentuckian fell unconscious in June—just how sick he is.

Throughout the week, McConnell was confused, disoriented, and quiet. At one point during a Senate Agriculture Committee meeting on the Farm Bill, McConnell even groggily sided with the Democrats before his allies told him how to vote. His participation was the deciding factor that advanced the bill, which passed by a vote of 12–11.

Only North Dakota Senator John Hoeven was brave enough to actually go on the record about McConnell. Hoeven was seated beside McConnell during the Farm Bill fiasco—but his recounting of the vote differed from video footage of the gaffe. Hoeven claimed that he had initially misdirected McConnell, wrongly informing him about which portion of the vote they were on.

Hoeven’s soft recounting would suggest, however, that lawmakers don’t need to be intellectually independent in order to work for the American people.

Hoeven added that McConnell is widely available for public comment, and encouraged Nichols to find McConnell in the hall.

But it has been tremendously difficult to get one word out of the Kentuckian. Last week, McConnell couldn’t even manage to give reporters a thumbs-up when asked if he was feeling good.

Wilber Rafael Garcés Perez, the food delivery driver shot by ICE in Austin, Texas on Sunday, still has a bullet lodged in his body and his wound is still bleeding.

Garcés Perez’s lawyer, Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch, posted on X that her client was visited by Representative Greg Casar Wednesday at ICE’s detention center in Pearsall, Texas. She said Garcés Perez still does not have full mobility on his left side, only receiving an injection for pain just one hour before the congressman arrived. The wound with the bullet hole is still bleeding, she added.

On Tuesday, a federal judge paused Garcés Perez’s deportation. But that came after ICE took him out of the hospital with a bullet still in his back to interrogate him. Perez was shot on Sunday while making a DoorDash delivery, and his wife and attorney didn’t have access to him for hours after he was detained and then moved to a detention center.

At a press conference after visiting Garcés Perez Wednesday, Casar railed against the federal government for shooting him in the back and arresting people like him without a criminal record.

“If you check the overall federal government stats about San Antonio-Austin area, the overwhelming majority of people by ICE’s own admission are people with no criminal history at all,” Casar said.

Lincoln-Goldfinch maintains that Garcés Perez was in the country legally with a work permit.