LA ICE Facility’s Open-Door-Only Lawyer Meetings Worry Judge

Lack of confidential legal communication at a Los Angeles immigrant processing facility that has been criticized for inhumane conditions troubled a federal judge, who previously ordered daily legal visitation, during a Thursday hearing.

Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong appeared ready to grant a preliminary injunction requiring access to counsel at the basement holding center known as B-18 in downtown Los Angeles. She asked whether the government is arguing that detainees aren’t entitled to confidential communications with their counsel.

Attorney Jonathan Ross, for the government, said they should be allowed to speak with lawyers. However, he defended open-door legal meetings at B-18, citing safety concerns. Lawyers can whisper to keep their discussions private, he said.

The case stems from a July lawsuit, which also challenged the Trump administration’s use of racial profiling during immigration sweeps. Plaintiffs alleged federal agents were holding them in “dungeon-like facilities” and denying access to their lawyers for arbitrary reasons.

Frimpong granted a TRO in July and ordered agents to allow legal visitation every day, for at least eight hours on weekdays and four hours on weekends. If the facilities are closed for security reasons, the lawyers should be told quickly and able to make alternate arrangements, she said. Since the TRO, agents have continued to cut visiting hours without notice and are monitoring legal meetings, the plaintiffs said in court filings.

The government’s position is that—absent a month-long “learning curve"—lawyer access at the facility has improved since Frimpong’s TRO.

Ross cited a decline in protest activity that he said caused agents to close off B-18 to lawyers. Lawyers after September 10 have been notified of every closure at the facility to allow them to reschedule client meetings, he said.

“The court’s concern is that it does seem undisputed that, after the issuance of the TRO, there were still violations,” Frimpong said.

She declined to engage with an argument from Mark Rosenbaum of Public Counsel that Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s statements calling the US District Court for the Central District of California judge an “idiot” represents a broader “attack on the rule of law.”

“I don’t think it really carries the day in either direction,” said Frimpong, an appointee of former President Joe Biden. She added,"I want to focus on what is happening at B-18.”

‘Inherently Coercive’

People are sleeping on freezing and dirty floors without blankets for days at B-18, where people are only meant to stay for up to 12 hours, Rosenbaum said.

They’re piling shoes and trash to create pillows, huddling against each other for body heat, and told to fill out forms they don’t understand that may lead to their self-deportation, he said.

“No beds, no showers, no heat, vending machine food at best,” he said.

The conditions are “inherently coercive,” and heighten the need for counsel, Rosenbaum said.

Frimpong asked whether she needs to find conditions are coercive to make a ruling on the preliminary injunction.

She also pushed back on arguments that it was unreasonable for the federal government to block lawyers’ access to the processing center after reports of protests nearly 30 miles away.

She said the government is making decisions about allowing access to the facility based on intelligence about local conditions. She asked Rosenbaum whether it was his position that the law requires lawyers’ have access unless there’s a “highly dangerous” protest outside “at the moment.”

‘Kavanaugh Stops’

Though part of the same case, the plaintiffs’ challenge to federal agents using racial profiling to conduct stops and arrests that led to a high-profile Supreme Court ruling was not at issue in Thursday’s hearing.

The US Supreme Court in September lifted a temporary restraining order issued by Frimpong that had barred federal immigration agents from questioning and detaining people based on their ethnicity, language, occupation, or presence at places where migrants typically work or look for work.

Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote in a concurrence that ethnicity can be considered alongside other factors for immigration stops and arrests. He acknowledged it could cause US citizens or others with legal status to be stopped but said they’d be “free to go after the brief encounter.”

Many lawful residents have said in court filings they’ve been caught in immigration sweeps. Critics are calling the encounters “Kavanaugh Stops.”

Frimpong last week granted a request from the plaintiffs to conduct limited, expedited discovery about the stops and arrests, including depositions of agents.

The case is Vasquez Perdomo v. Noem, C.D. Cal., No. 2:25-cv-05605, 10/23/25.