The cell was poorly heated, designed to hold only a single person, briefly, and measuring about 6 feet by 6 feet. But Erron Anthony Clarke spent more than two days there, sleeping near an open toilet with eight others, as the temperature outside dropped to 21 degrees.
The lights were kept on at all hours.
The detention, inside a federal courthouse in Central Islip, N.Y., was the subject of a blistering 24-page opinion on Thursday by Judge Gary R. Brown regarding the treatment of Mr. Clarke, a Jamaican citizen who had applied for permanent residency and was held in the freezing, filthy conditions, unable to shower.
“After nearly 35 years of experience with federal law enforcement in this judicial district, encompassing service as a prosecutor and a judge, I have never encountered anything like this,” Judge Brown, who was appointed by President Trump in 2019, wrote.
The judge also wrote that Immigration and Customs Enforcement had presented false information about Mr. Clarke’s arrest and had ignored court orders by failing to present him for a hearing and provide photographs of the cell. He questioned why the agency should not be held in contempt.
The scathing opinion from Judge Brown was the latest example of the way judges across the country have criticized conditions at federal detention lockups, in some cases releasing people they say have been wrongfully and inhumanely detained.
A federal judge in August ordered the Trump administration to fix the squalid holding cells used to house migrants at 26 Federal Plaza in New York City. In November, a judge in Chicago said that an ICE facility subjected migrants to “unnecessarily cruel” conditions and imposed restrictions on the facility.
A spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment, nor did a lawyer for Mr. Clarke, who has now been released.
Mr. Clarke, 41, came to the United States in 2018 on a visa for seasonal workers, according to court documents. He remained in the country after his visa expired but in 2023 married a U.S. citizen, opening a path to permanent residency.
On Nov. 6, Mr. Clarke applied to become a permanent resident, noting in his application that he had worked in the United States without authorization. As part of his application process, he arrived on Dec. 5 for a fingerprinting appointment at an ICE office in Hauppauge, N.Y. He was pulled over and arrested by immigration enforcement agents shortly after leaving the facility. ICE immediately began proceedings to deport him.
For 12 hours that night, Mr. Clarke was detained in the tiny room in the federal courthouse. On Dec. 6, he was moved to an ICE detention facility in East Meadow, N.Y., only to be brought back to the squalid conditions three days later.
After petitioning for his release, Mr. Clarke was again transferred on Dec. 10 to an ICE detention facility, this time in Newark. After the agency initially ignored his order to present him for a hearing, he appeared on Dec. 11 before Judge Brown, who ordered him immediately released. Yet Mr. Clarke was held for another night in Newark.
John Diaz, an ICE officer, wrote in an affidavit that Mr. Clarke’s application had prompted an investigation into his legal status. But Judge Brown said that Mr. Diaz’s declaration was “demonstrably false.”
The warrant for Mr. Clarke’s arrest was in fact issued after Mr. Clarke’s appointment, Judge Brown wrote. And Mr. Diaz’s account in the affidavit of moving Mr. Clarke from facility to facility — including a claim that he had been transported 60 miles in 30 minutes — was “objectively impossible,” he wrote.
“The evidence presented to this court, which has been largely unrebutted, demonstrates that ICE has been deploying its ‘holding rooms’ in a manner that shocks the conscience,” Judge Brown wrote.
Santul Nerkar is a Times reporter covering federal courts in Brooklyn.
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