ICE Has Doubled Its Presence in Notorious Brooklyn Jail

by Gwynne Hogan and Rosalind Adams

This article was originally published on February 18 at 6:18 p.m. EST by THE CITY

Immigration and Customs Enforcement is now holding immigrants in two different cell blocks inside of the Metropolitan Detention Center, a hulking federal jail in Sunset Park.  

That news came from Representative Dan Goldman, whose district encompasses the prison and who toured the facility for the first time on Wednesday, speaking to several detainees who had been held there for months. 

ICE officials told Goldman, the first member of Congress to visit since the agency started housing immigrants there last summer, that 191 people were being held as of Wednesday afternoon in two cell blocks with a combined capacity of 248 detainees. That’s nearly a fifth of the prison’s overall capacity of 1,300 people. 

While Goldman told THE CITY following his hour-long visit that he didn’t encounter any major problems, federal habeas corpus lawsuits and interviews with immigrants locked up there in recent months described frequent lockdowns, inedible food, and difficulty accessing medical care.

Those are issues that prisoners charged with federal crimes or serving short sentences inside the prison have long described, and are well documented in news reports and federal court filings over many years. But ICE detainees, unlike people in the criminal justice system, aren’t guaranteed attorneys to advocate on their behalf. 

“Even sleeping wasn’t easy,” a 30-year-old from Guinea recalled in French. The man, who asked to remain anonymous, spent seven months inside MDC after his arrest following an immigration court appearance last summer. 

He eventually learned about pro bono attorneys at Make the Road New York through another immigrant being held there. The nonprofit filed a habeas corpus writ on his behalf in early January, and a judge ordered his release the same day.

“It’s suffering. That’s what I went through there,” he said. “People are suffering there.”

Goldman said he didn’t know when ICE had opened the second block for its detainees. A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, didn’t return a request for comment.

Lawsuits paint grim picture

MDC, the only federal lockup in New York City, houses notorious inmates like Nicolás Maduro and Luigi Mangione. Last June, it also started holding ICE detainees. 

Members of the U.S. House of Representatives, who are supposed to be able to conduct unannounced inspections of any place ICE detainees are being held, had been repeatedly denied entry. 

Wednesday was the first time Goldman attempted to visit since a court order last December reaffirmed the law requiring ICE to let members of Congress inspect its detention facilities. 

But while Congress members are allowed to enter other ICE facilities unannounced, Goldman’s MDC visit had to be pre-planned because the Bureau of Prisons, which oversees the jail, requires advance notice. 

“It didn’t jump out that there were any serious issues in terms of the actual conditions other than being in jail,” Goldman told THE CITY after the visit. “They were getting fed. They had access to the basketball court, rec area. There were a couple of TVs. They had access to computers.”

But several lawsuits filed by ICE detainees held there since last summer paint a grim broader picture, with several describing difficulty accessing medical care. 

A Colombian man with HIV, referred to in legal filings as O.F.B., went more than a week without access to his preventative HIV medication despite asking staff at the prison for them multiple times each day, according to a federal habeas corpus case filed last November. 

“His health deteriorated quickly, and Mr. B worried no one would ever help him and he would die,” read his lawsuit, filed by Brooklyn Defender Services. 

“He felt feverish, sore, and weak. His lips got extremely chapped and they began to break and bleed, and his leg broke out in an infected pustule; that is when the medical staff at MDC took notice. Mr. B told them that HIV can spread through blood, and that his pustule oozing and his lips cracking and bleeding was a health hazard. Mr. B was finally given HIV medication that day.”

His attorneys declined to comment further on the case.

Another HIV-positive detainee who spoke with THE CITY on the condition of anonymity described going more than two weeks without access to his antiviral medications. 

“I was so stressed out,” the man, a Venezuelan asylum seeker who was held at MDC for two months last summer, told THE CITY in Spanish. “That’s the thing that keeps me healthy,” he said. Without it, “whatever illness, even a fever, can be fatal for me.”

In another legal filing, Jonathan, a 34-year-old Mexican man, described months of severe dental pain that prevented him from eating and sleeping. While he needed a tooth pulled, he was offered only ibuprofen. “The pain affects his ability to eat and sleep, he has been told to simply wait,” his attorney wrote in a December filing. 

Several detainees described prolonged lockdowns where they would be trapped in their small cell with a roommate for days at a time, sometimes for the entire weekend, or for several days if a high profile inmate was entering or leaving the building. 

“They’d lock us in for any little thing,” the Venezuelan man told THE CITY. “Sometimes for three days at a time.”

A Queens high school student, one of the few Bangladeshi immigrants held at MDC, spent a month there last fall, barely able to communicate with anyone. The 12th grader told THE CITY he instead tried to focus on improving his English. He suffered frequent stomach aches from food he said was “cold, hard, or spoiled.” Sometimes he opted not to eat at all. 

When he was released, his teachers and principal welcomed him back, offering extra support so he could keep up with his classes. “You’re not alone, we’re here with you,” they told him, he recalled. “They love me so much.”

The teen said he’s trying to focus on his future, but the dark weeks he spent inside a small cell still come to mind. 

“That’s my worst memory, I’ll never forget about that,” he said. “I don’t want anyone else to go through that.”

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