Permanent court order sets a ceiling on ICE detentions inside 26 Federal Plaza

Immigrant rights advocates won a lasting victory in Manhattan federal court on Wednesday. U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan made permanent a cap on how many people U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement may keep in its 10th-floor holding cells at 26 Federal Plaza.

Those limits date back to summer 2025, when immigration arrests across New York City surged. The order that set them came with other protections as well. People held in the cells are guaranteed food three times daily, hygiene supplies such as sanitary items, and a way to reach their attorneys. The injunction now keeps all of it in place.

What the judge found about the ICE holding cells

Kaplan wrote in his opinion that the conditions ICE imposed on detainees in the building that summer “were inhumane and unconstitutional.” According to the judge, the agency crowded far more people into the rooms, and kept them there far longer, than the space was designed for. Detainees went without sleep, sanitary surroundings, basic hygiene, enough food and water, and proper medical care. Kaplan also found that ICE kept them from contacting their lawyers.

The judge had already stepped in with a temporary restraining order in August 2025, shortly after the suit landed on his docket. Since then, conditions in the cells have gotten much better. Before that order, Kaplan wrote, the building “essentially was a black site.”

ICE flatly rejected claims that the cells fell short. But evidence at a bench trial in May, including text messages, internal emails and sworn testimony from senior agency officials, showed that people inside ICE saw it another way. One official voiced worry about the safety of everyone there, and another described the conditions as insane.

Who brought the 26 Federal Plaza lawsuit

Make the Road New York filed the case more than a year ago together with the ACLU, the NYCLU and the private law firm Wang Hecker LLP. The building is also home to several immigration courtrooms. In a statement, Harold Solis, a legal director with Make the Road New York, praised the decision and gave credit to the detainees who lived through those conditions and came forward.

The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately answer a request for comment. The latest figures from the Deportation Data Project show that no later period has topped the arrest surge that started in May 2025, with data running through at least July.