Immigration groups urge judge to keep scrutiny on ICE holding cells at Central Islip federal courthouse

Immigration advocacy groups are imploring a federal judge on Long Island to continue questioning the Trump administration’s use of holding cells in the Central Islip federal courthouse to detain immigrants for longer than 12 hours or overnight.

In a Dec. 23 letter made public Tuesday, Long Island's top federal prosecutor told a judge U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement would not continue to detain people in the hold rooms at the Central Islip federal courthouse beyond the 12-hour period.

The letter came days after U.S. District Judge Gary R. Brown described the conditions of the makeshift holding rooms used by ICE as "substandard, abhorrent and likely unlawful" and ordered the federal agency to identify an improvement plan.

Murad Awawdeh, the head of the New York Immigration Coalition, said Wednesday the assurances made in this letter "are simply a ploy to avoid further judicial scrutiny and oversight."

"ICE has been defying legal requirements and denying repeated reports of overcrowding and inhumane conditions at the facility for months," Awawdeh said in an emailed statement, calling for the court to continue its investigation into the Central Islip facility and urging its closure.

Brown’s decision stemmed from a lawsuit filed on behalf of a Jamaican immigrant who was detained alongside eight other men in a holding cell at the courthouse with no access to a shower, bed, hygiene products or a change of clothes.

Joseph Nocella Jr., the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, said in the letter to Brown that ICE would transfer all detainees in the Central Islip holding rooms each evening and "detentions will be limited to no more than 12 hours."

Nocella noted the new guidelines would apply unless there were "temporary and unforeseen circumstances that require immediate action."

The U.S. Attorney’s Office and ICE plan to respond in full to Brown’s order by Jan. 23, Nocella added.

Ahmad Perez, the founder of Islip Forward, a community activist organization focused on immigrant rights, said the letter to Brown was "an admission of guilt."

"What we're seeing is the federal government admit that they were holding folks incorrectly here," said Perez, whose group held a rally against the conditions in the holding cells earlier this week.

"They are putting folks with no criminal record in cells that are freezing cold, with no materials to stay warm, no access to basic needs or medications to stay safe. This is really injustice happening in our own backyard before our very eyes, in real time," Perez added.

A Newsday investigation published last week found more than 100 people detained in the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown have spent extended hours in the cramped cells, which are intended to briefly hold one person.

Between the start of the year and Oct. 15, the most recent date available, 98 people spent more than 12 hours in the Central Islip hold rooms, according to Newsday’s analysis of federal immigration data published by the Deportation Data Project research group. Most were held overnight and some for as many as 72 hours.

In interviews and court records, people described sleeping around an open toilet and packed in so tightly that lying down to sleep was difficult. Detainees also said they had no access to showers and the cells were either freezing or overheated  and had just mats to lay on and reflective blankets to keep them warm.

Similar to Awawdeh, Nadia Marin-Molina, the co-executive director of the National Day Laborers Organizing Network, which advocates on behalf of immigrants and low-wage earners, is skeptical ICE will follow through with the restrictions on detentions in Central Islip.

"It’s important that they be held accountable for what it is they’re saying. It’s important that there’s monitoring to make sure that they are actually complying with what it is they’re promising to do on that letter," Marin-Molina said.

 NewsdayTV's Virginia Huie contributed to this story.