This likely won't come as a shock to most readers, but a federal judge in Manhattan has permanently barred Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) from returning to the detention practices it used at 26 Federal Plaza during the summer of 2025, finding that the conditions there violated detainees' constitutional rights.
U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan (the Clinton appointee who presided over the E. Jean Carroll v. Trump lawsuits) issued the 127-page ruling Thursday in Mercado v. Mullin, following a bench trial over conditions at the Manhattan facility, which ICE has used to temporarily hold illegal aliens arrested as part of the Trump administration's stepped-up immigration enforcement efforts.
Kaplan didn't merely extend an earlier preliminary injunction. He entered permanent relief and certified a class encompassing all immigration detainees currently held — or who will be held in the future — at 26 Federal Plaza.
The case began amid complaints about overcrowding and conditions in holding rooms at the facility. Kaplan issued a temporary restraining order in August 2025, followed by a preliminary injunction the following month that imposed capacity limits and requirements regarding food, water, hygiene, medical care, sleeping accommodations, and access to attorneys. Those restrictions have remained in place ever since.
Following a bench trial in May, Kaplan concluded that the conditions ICE subjected detainees to during the summer of 2025 went beyond mere discomfort. “The conditions of confinement to which ICE subjected immigration detainees at 26 Fed during the summer of 2025 were inhumane and unconstitutional,” he wrote.
Kaplan found that overcrowding and extended stays in rooms designed for short-term detention deprived detainees of sleep, sanitary conditions, basic hygiene, sufficient food and water, and adequate medical care. He separately concluded that restrictions on confidential telephone calls with attorneys violated detainees' First and Fifth Amendment rights.
The judge went considerably further when addressing ICE's intent, finding that the agency “knew, or should have known” that its treatment of detainees was improper but continued anyway. Kaplan concluded that ICE did so “to inflict punishment on detainees and induce them to self-deport.” That particular finding of Kaplan's is likely to receive considerable attention should the administration appeal — which, one suspects, it will.
The record also showed that ICE didn't always comply with the court's earlier orders. Kaplan pointed to multiple violations of the capacity restrictions imposed by the TRO and preliminary injunction. In one particularly striking example, ICE was holding 48 detainees in tenth-floor holding rooms on August 18, 2025, despite a court-imposed limit of 22, with at least 13 additional detainees expected to arrive. An ICE official acknowledged internally that the agency was “in violation of the TRO” and needed to reduce the population.
The government largely did not dispute the underlying factual evidence at trial, instead arguing that ICE was currently complying with the preliminary injunction and that any permanent relief should not go beyond its existing requirements. Kaplan concluded that current compliance wasn't enough to eliminate the need for permanent restrictions, particularly given ICE's prior violations and the possibility that increased arrests could again strain the facility.
Kaplan also broadened the class of individuals covered by the lawsuit. The earlier provisional class was limited to detainees held, or expected to be held, for at least 12 hours. Thursday's ruling eliminates that cutoff and covers all current and future ICE detainees at 26 Federal Plaza.
The ruling doesn't give the plaintiffs everything they requested, however. Kaplan declined, for instance, to allow their lawyers to conduct indefinite inspections of the facility on four hours' notice or require all of the extensive monthly reporting they sought.
But the practical result is significant: The restrictions that have governed ICE's detention operations at 26 Federal Plaza for more than a year are no longer temporary measures imposed while the litigation plays out. They are now backed by a permanent injunction entered after trial, with a certified class of present and future detainees protected by it.