Baltimore Lawmakers Arrive at ICE Facility, Find Detainees Already Transferred Out

Five Maryland congressional Democrats entered the ICE field office at the George H. Fallon Federal Building in downtown Baltimore just after 9 a.m. Monday expecting to conduct oversight of a facility that had drawn months of public outcry. They spent more than an hour inside. There was no one to oversee.

"It happens to be that there's nobody in this facility," Sen. Chris Van Hollen told reporters after the visit. The delegation, which included Sen. Angela Alsobrooks and Reps. Kweisi Mfume, Glenn Ivey, and Johnny Olszewski Jr., arrived days after a federal judge ordered a sharp reduction in the facility's maximum occupancy. Reporting from The Baltimore Banner indicates ICE transferred detainees out of the facility to Arizona the day before the congressional visit.

ICE officials inside gave no answers about where detainees had been moved, telling Van Hollen only that they were reviewing the court decision. Lawmakers also had their phones confiscated at the start of the tour, and ICE officials refused repeated requests to allow photographs.

"They obviously are continuing this pattern of wanting to hide, hide what's happening there from the American people," Van Hollen said.

The judge's order, issued the previous Friday, dramatically curtailed operations at the facility. CBS Baltimore reported the ruling reduced maximum capacity from 226 to 55 across five holding rooms, while other outlets reported the new limit as 56. Van Hollen noted that before the order took effect, one room alone had a posted capacity sign of 70 people.

The conditions lawmakers described from prior visits and from video evidence made the timing of the transfers difficult to dismiss as coincidence. A video leaked on January 27, while Baltimore was under a state of emergency due to snow and freezing temperatures, showed dozens of men crammed into a single holding room, many lying on the floor using emergency blankets and sleeping on hard benches. DHS said the footage was recorded after a winter storm delayed detainee transfers. In February, the full congressional delegation wrote to both ICE and the Department of Homeland Security calling conditions at the facility "disturbing."

What lawmakers found Monday, even absent any detainees, still appalled them. Rep. Glenn Ivey, a former prosecutor who said he has visited jails and holding cells throughout his legal career, described the space in unsparing terms.

"I am disgusted by what I just saw," Ivey said. "I just got back from Montgomery and Selma for Bloody Sunday. Part of what we did while we were down there was we actually toured old slave quarters, and I have to say, they look pretty much like we would what we just saw upstairs."

He returned to the comparison at another point: "We adopted two dogs a little while ago and we went to the shelter to go get them. And the shelter space is better than the human space they've got upstairs."

Alsobrooks was equally pointed. "This facility is unfit even to house animals," she said. "These conditions are inhumane, cruel and consistent with the desires of this administration who have no interest whatsoever in making the lives of Americans better."

The delegation briefed Baltimore Mayor Brandon M. Scott and City Council President Zeke Cohen after the inspection. Maryland Senate President Bill Ferguson, who spoke at the post-visit news conference outside the Fallon Building, posted on social media that conditions at the facility are "deplorable and must be immediately corrected."

The visit added a public health dimension to the existing concerns: lawmakers also raised alarms about Legionella bacteria found in the water system of the George H. Fallon Federal Building, which houses the ICE facility along with other federal offices.

ICE, in a statement, said the agency "remains committed to always upholding the safety and well-being of all detainees in custody." The agency has previously denied allegations of inhumane conditions, stating it "remains committed to enforcing immigration laws fairly, safely and humanely."

Van Hollen said the delegation would not accept the silence from ICE officials on where detainees were taken. He announced that lawmakers plan to subpoena ICE officials to compel answers about the transfers and the conditions inside the facility.