ICE Briefly Shuts Down Baltimore Hold Room to Comply With Court Order

Federal immigration authorities temporarily shut down their processing facility inside the George H. Fallon Federal Building in downtown Baltimore after U.S. District Court Judge Julie R. Rubin ordered the agency to provide detainees with minimal personal space, clean surroundings, hygiene items, and medical care. ICE later reopened the hold room after meeting the court's requirements, though the agency declined to specify exactly when the facility closed or how long it remained shuttered.

The closure followed a striking sequence of events. On March 8, ICE cleared as many as 100 people out of the holding cells on the sixth floor of the Fallon Building, the day before members of Maryland's congressional delegation arrived for a scheduled oversight visit and found the facility empty. Judge Rubin had issued her order two days before that mass clearing.

In a statement issued Friday from an unnamed spokesperson, ICE said the agency "acted in accordance with the court order and temporarily shut down the facility while moving the detainees from it to longer-term facilities." Newly arrested detainees were processed through other facilities during the shutdown, the statement said. Many of the displaced detainees were flown to Arizona, where they were held briefly before being moved to other detention centers across the country.

An attorney whose client was detained at the hold room this week said his client described being held alongside about eight other people, and that twelve additional detainees were transferred out while his client was present. The attorney asked not to be named out of fear of reprisal against his client.

ICE attributed the mass transfer of detainees solely to court-ordered compliance, stating it was not connected to reports of a Legionella outbreak that Maryland lawmakers had flagged at the Fallon Building. Legionella bacteria cause a severe form of pneumonia. The agency did not address questions about the long-term future of the downtown Baltimore hold room.

The facility's deteriorating conditions had drawn scrutiny for roughly a year, capturing the attention of lawmakers, Judge Rubin, and Maryland's attorney general, all of whom pressed the Trump administration in recent months to improve operations there. Whether Friday's reopening resolves those concerns or simply restarts the clock on a contested facility remains an open question ICE has not answered.