Baltimore ICE Facility Lawsuit: March 2026 Ruling and Records Suit

The Baltimore ICE facility lawsuit, D.N.N. v. Liggins, is a federal class action challenging the conditions inside U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement holding cells at the George H. Fallon Federal Building in downtown Baltimore. Filed in May 2025 by the Amica Center for Immigrant Rights and the National Immigration Project, the case produced a preliminary injunction on March 6, 2026, in which U.S. District Judge Julie R. Rubin found that ICE had violated detainees’ Fifth Amendment due process rights and ordered the agency to meet specific constitutional standards while the litigation continues.¹

The Facility at the Center of the Case

The hold rooms occupy space inside a federal courthouse in downtown Baltimore. ICE has consistently described the site as a “processing facility” rather than a detention center, and the agency’s own internal policy, Directive 11087.2, caps confinement in such rooms at 12 hours.² The rooms have a rated capacity of 56 people.³

A UCLA professor’s analysis presented in court found that only about 4% of people booked into the facility actually left within the 12-hour limit.⁴ ICE’s own records showed more than 3,200 people passed through the cells in the first ten months of 2025.¹ A March 2025 congressional staff visit reported overcrowded rooms, no infirmary, no on-site medical staff, and detainees being fed sandwiches or fast food purchased by ICE personnel.⁵

Who Sued and What They Alleged

The complaint was filed on May 14, 2025, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland on behalf of two women, long-time Maryland residents from Guatemala and El Salvador, who had been held in the Baltimore cells.⁶ Defendants included the acting Field Office Director of ICE Baltimore, Vernon Liggins, the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, ICE itself, and the Attorney General. The suit alleged violations of the Administrative Procedure Act and the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment, and it characterized ICE’s approach as a “detain first, think later” strategy driven by arrest quotas and nationwide detention overcrowding.²

Court filings, declarations, and expert reports described the following conditions inside the cells:

Overcrowding well beyond the 56-person capacity for more than half the period between February and October 2025, reaching as high as 123 people. At full capacity, each detainee had roughly 10 square feet of space.³⁷
Over 95% of detainees held longer than 12 hours during that same window, and 27% held longer than 72 hours, some for days or weeks.⁸
Detainees sleeping on concrete floors, sometimes sitting up for lack of space, with thin aluminum blankets that were reportedly contaminated with feces, lice, urine, and vomit.³
No on-site medical staff. Sworn declarations described people denied medication for leukemia, HIV, diabetes, and high blood pressure; a person with a brain tumor allegedly denied medication and an appointment for more than 10 days; and a diabetic detainee denied insulin, triggering a medical crisis.⁷
Windowless cells with no clocks or calendars, lit 24 hours a day, each with a single toilet behind only a mid-height privacy wall, and no showers.⁸

An internal ICE memo from February 2025, written by the agency’s own Deputy Field Office Director, had warned that the lack of medical staffing “could potentially lead to liability issues or, in the worst-case scenario, fatalities.”³

The First Ruling Went Against the Plaintiffs

The case did not succeed on its first pass. On July 25, 2025, Judge Rubin denied both class certification and a preliminary injunction. She found the two original plaintiffs were not adequate class representatives and that their claims lacked sufficient commonality. Because both had already been transferred out of the Baltimore hold rooms, the court held their individual claims were moot.⁹

The plaintiffs amended the complaint and added a third named plaintiff, identified as Edward Doe and permitted to proceed under a pseudonym due to his asylum status and fears of retaliation. Doe submitted a declaration describing his detention in mid-December 2025 in a cell with roughly 50 other men.⁸ Backed by additional evidence gathered over the intervening months, the plaintiffs renewed their motions.

The March 2026 Ruling

On March 6, 2026, Judge Rubin granted both class certification and a preliminary injunction. She certified a class of “all persons who are now or in the future will be detained at the Baltimore Hold Rooms.”¹⁰

In her memorandum opinion, the judge found that ICE had violated detainees’ Fifth Amendment due process rights and that conditions in the hold rooms “woefully fail to comport with contemporary standards of decency,” amounting to “unconstitutional punishment.”¹ The remaining claims addressed sleep deprivation, hygiene and sanitation, medical care, food and water, and access to counsel. Rubin rejected the government’s argument that overcrowding and resource shortages amounted to “exceptional circumstances” justifying the conditions, writing that they were “entirely of their own making.”⁸

What ICE Must Now Do

The preliminary injunction imposes specific, enforceable requirements while the case continues:

Give each detainee at least 31 square feet of personal space, excluding the area within eight feet of a toilet. In practice this caps the facility at 56 people.¹⁰¹¹
Conduct a basic medical screening within 12 hours of arrival, covering mental and physical illness, injury, communicable diseases, and disabilities. Continuity of prescription medication must be ensured within 24 hours, detainees must be allowed to keep personal inhaled medication, and over-the-counter pain medication and emergency hospital care must be available.¹⁰
Clean the hold rooms thoroughly at least once a day and provide daily access to soap, towels, toilet paper, oral hygiene items, and feminine hygiene products.¹⁰
Provide written notice of these rights in English and Spanish within one hour of arrival, with interpretation services for those who need them.¹⁰
Refrain from retaliating against anyone who reports violations of the order.
Adopt written compliance procedures and file a certification with the court within 60 days. The order was to be transmitted to all relevant ICE personnel within 72 hours.¹⁰

ICE’s Response

During the injunction proceedings, the government argued the requested order “would impede its progress to conduct immigration enforcement.” Judge Rubin rejected that framing, noting her order “merely would require that it be done within the confines of the Constitution.”¹¹

An ICE spokesperson publicly disputed the allegations, calling the Baltimore field office “a processing facility not a detention facility” and calling reports of overcrowding and poor conditions “false.” The agency said it provides food, water, blankets, and hygiene products, and claimed it maintains “higher detention standards than most U.S. prisons” and offers detainees “the best healthcare than many aliens have received in their entire lives.”³ A delegation of officials who visited the facility shortly after the ruling found it empty, and it was unclear how many people ICE was detaining there when the order took effect.¹²

The Maryland Attorney General’s Records Lawsuit

A separate case, filed by Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown, is running alongside the class action. In late January 2026, Brown’s office opened a civil rights investigation into the facility focused on overcrowding, denial of medical care and basic needs, and lack of access to counsel.¹³ On January 30, 2026, the office issued an administrative subpoena for records about conditions in the hold rooms, detainee demographics, and the legal basis for individual detentions. ICE denied the subpoena on February 25, 2026, calling it too broad and burdensome, and then said it would need until April 6 to determine whether it could produce anything at all.¹⁴ On March 10, 2026, the Attorney General filed a federal lawsuit to compel compliance, alleging ICE’s refusal was “unreasonable, arbitrary and capricious” and violated the Administrative Procedure Act.

Where the Case Stands

The class action remains active. The March 6, 2026 preliminary injunction is in force, and ICE was required to file a compliance certification within 60 days.¹⁰ Litigation on the merits continues, with discovery complicated by a government shutdown.⁹ The Attorney General’s records lawsuit is pending. As of reporting in March 2026, DHS and ICE had not responded to requests for comment.¹¹

1
National Immigration Project. Federal Court Orders ICE to End Inhumane Conditions for Immigrants in Baltimore’s Courthouse Holding Cells
2
Amica Center for Immigrant Rights. Immigration Advocacy Groups Sue ICE on Behalf of People Held Illegally in Inhumane Conditions in Baltimore Holding Cells
3
WBAL-TV. Maryland Sues ICE Over Baltimore Field Office Hold Cell Conditions
4
WYPR. Maryland Lawmakers Tour ICE Facility, Decry Overcrowding
5
Maryland Matters. Maryland Delegation Denied Access to Inspect Baltimore ICE Facility
6
National Immigration Project. Immigration Advocacy Groups Sue ICE on Behalf of People Held Illegally in Inhumane Conditions
7
WMAR-2 News. Judge: Baltimore ICE Hold Rooms Violated Fifth Amendment, Orders Immediate Limits on Detainees
8
U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland. D.N.N. et al. v. Liggins et al., Memorandum Opinion
9
Civil Rights Litigation Clearinghouse. D.N.N. v. Baker
10
U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland. D.N.N. et al. v. Liggins et al., Order
11
Maryland Matters. Maryland Ramps Up Legal Action Against Federal Immigration Facilities
12
The Daily Record. ICE Hold Room Baltimore
13
Maryland Office of the Attorney General. Attorney General Brown Files Lawsuit to Force ICE to Turn Over Records
14
CBS News Baltimore. Maryland Lawsuit ICE DHS Immigration Detention Facility