Judge to Visit Chicago-Area ICE Facility Called ‘Inhumane’

A Chicago federal magistrate judge will visit a suburban Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility accused of cultivating a filthy, inhumane environment for detainees.

Judge Laura McNally said at a hearing Friday that her visit, accompanied by attorneys on both sides of a lawsuit over the building’s conditions, would be appropriate as part of her duties overseeing discovery in the case. They could visit the building in Broadview, Ill., as early as next week.

The district judge presiding over non-magistrate matters, who earlier this week entered a temporary restraining order this week mandating improved conditions, had declined plaintiffs’ initial request for a site visit.

McNally also encouraged the parties to consider whether the case could be settled, especially given the government’s claim that many of the conditions plaintiffs requested have already been implemented at Broadview.

“If this were a simple commercial case and one side said ‘I’m already doing half this stuff and I don’t mind doing the other things,’ I’d say why don’t you settle this,” she said.

Neither set of attorneys indicated whether they’d be open to settlement talks.

District Judge Robert Gettleman entered a temporary restraining order this week mandating improved conditions at the facility. In a status report filed Friday, the government said it was taking steps toward compliance, but plaintiff attorneys were skeptical.

The facility in suburban Broadview was never intended for long-term stays, but Trump’s aggressive ramp-up of immigration enforcement has meant detainees are held there for days on end, according to a proposed class complaint filed against the Department of Homeland Security last week in the US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.

In a hearing before Gettleman earlier Friday, attorneys for the plaintiffs said they were repeatedly provided phone numbers that were supposed to facilitate contact with clients, but none of the numbers worked, and email inboxes were apparently unmonitored.

Gettleman told attorneys that officials should be responding to emails within two hours.

Earlier this week Gettleman presided over a daylong hearing during which witnesses testified about nightmarish conditions at Broadview. Dozens of people were crammed into filthy holding rooms with no working showers and inadequate food and water, they said, and people are forced to try to sleep on cold concrete floors in rooms where the lights are never turned off.

Attorneys testified they have no real way to contact their clients being held there, and the plaintiffs say detainees are coerced into signing away their rights.

Trump administration attorneys offered little rebuttal to the testimony, but said conditions are improving—detainees have recently been given baby wipes to clean themselves—and claimed that giving the plaintiffs what they want would effectively halt Chicago-area immigration enforcement.

From the bench, Gettleman said the conditions had become “cruel” and prison-like. The day after the hearing he entered a temporary restraining order requiring the facility to provide bedding, showers, hygiene products, and adequate food and water. Rooms must be cleaned at least twice daily, and detainees must be able to communicate with their attorneys, the order states.

Inhumane conditions at immigration facilities have also been alleged in New York and Los Angeles, where judges have also issued orders.

Plaintiffs are represented by MacArthur Justice Center, Roger Baldwin Foundation of ACLU Inc., and Eimer Stahl.

The case is Moreno Gonzalez v. Noem, N.D. Ill., No. 1:25-cv-13323, hearings 11/7/25.