A viral video has reignited concerns about overcrowding in federal immigration holding cells in Baltimore, where lawyers and Democratic lawmakers have repeatedly alleged that detainees are being kept for as long as 10 days at a time in a site designed for much shorter stays.
The footage shows several dozen men standing, sitting or lying down in close quarters, including several stretched under Mylar blankets. It offers a rare window into conditions at the center of an ongoing federal lawsuit that alleges poor treatment amid the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.
The Washington Post could not independently confirm the authenticity of the video, which was shared by a Spanish-language Facebook page that said it disseminated the video at the request of one of its followers. An immigrant rights group vouched for the veracity of the recording, in which a voice can be heard pleading for help in Spanish and saying that people are sick and have not bathed in 10 days.
“Look how these people have us here,” the voice says.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement typically has used holding cells at its field offices nationwide — like the one seemingly depicted in the video — for a handful of just-arrested detainees to be processed, then releasing them or sending them to long-term detention facilities elsewhere.
But lawyers allege that the downtown Baltimore site and others like it around the country are often overcrowded and unsanitary, overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of arrests made by the Trump administration far from the border and without enough available space inside long-term detention facilities.
Immigration advocates first raised concerns about conditions at the Baltimore site last spring, when they filed a lawsuit alleging that overcrowding throughout ICE’s network of detention facilities had prompted the agency to keep people for long stretches in “cage-like holding cells” unequipped for overnight stays, in violation of its own policy and the Constitution.
The holding cells — which lack beds and showers — were designed for stays of no longer than 12 hours, although a waiver issued by ICE last year extended that limit to 72 hours. Lawyers and advocates also say the Maryland site lacks hygiene products, medical care and often adequate food for detainees who have been held for days beyond that limit.
The voice in the video says some of the detainees have been inside the holding cell for 10 days.
The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, did not contest the veracity of the video or answer questions about crowding in the Baltimore holding cells, but instead pointed to this weekend’s massive winter storm.
“Widespread flight cancellations and severe weather conditions have significantly disrupted transportation, making it nearly impossible for ICE to safely transfer detainees from processing facilities like this one in Baltimore, to long term detention facilities as scheduled,” a DHS spokesperson said in a statement. “For the safety of flight staff, officers and the detainees, ICE is keeping detainees at the holding facility in Baltimore until it is safe to continue flight operations.”
Both of Maryland’s U.S. senators reshared the video on social media this week and lambasted the facility’s “inhumane conditions.” Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D) said Tuesday that he contacted ICE about visiting the site, which is a few floors above a federal immigration court, but was told by the agency that he would be denied entry.
The agency’s field offices serve as local headquarters for ICE around the country and often are housed in federal office buildings in major metro areas. Immigrant detainees, upon being arrested, are brought to holding cells at those offices to be photographed and fingerprinted before they are released or taken elsewhere.
“It’s central booking,” said Darius Reeves, who led the agency’s Baltimore field office from December 2024 through May 2025. Under the federal waiver, ICE headquarters must grant permission to hold people there beyond 72 hours.
But as arrests have ramped up across the country, multiple ICE field offices — including those in New York, Los Angeles and Northern Virginia — have experienced reports of overcrowding and much longer stays, particularly when the agency has pushed to arrest more immigrants.
When ICE arrests spiked during a federal law enforcement crackdown in D.C. late last summer, multiple lawyers told The Post that the Northern Virginia office — ICE’s closest site to the nation’s capital — was being crowded with detainees who stayed for as long as a week.
The latest video from Baltimore appears to have been filmed on a cellphone by an ICE detainee who then sent the footage to a family member, who disseminated it more widely. ICE typically confiscates phones from people when it arrests them and has restricted access to its facilities even to members of Congress, so videos like this one are rarely distributed to the public.
Ama Frimpong, legal director for the immigrant rights group CASA, said the organization had verified the footage and was in contact “with individuals directly impacted by the conditions documented in the video.”
Amelia Dagen, a lawyer with the Amica Center for Immigrant Rights — which filed the class-action federal lawsuit alleging poor conditions — said in an interview that the images in the video were “sadly very consistent” with reports that the group has received for nearly a year.
She said the organization has regularly heard of such severe overcrowding, where there isn’t enough room for people to move or even lie down. The bare concrete cell, with benches affixed to the walls and one phone, also matches descriptions given by clients, Dagen added, as do descriptions from the individual speaking in the video, who notes that they are unable to bathe and are hungry.
DHS officials have said in court filings that they offer detainees mattresses and blankets for those staying overnight, as well as water, three meals a day, a set of toiletries — including a toothbrush and toothpaste — and access to a cellphone. But Dagen said that the lack of a food vendor or on-site medical staff points to what she called intentionally punitive conditions for detainees.
“This is unconstitutional and is a clear effort to strip people of dignity and safety in ICE detention,” Dagen said.
Jose Guerrero, an assistant ICE field office director in Baltimore, said in a federal court declaration in June that the holding facility consists of three large sex-segregated large cells, which each hold up to 35 people. (Two other small cells are rarely used, he added.)
Amica’s lawsuit points out that from February through mid-October 2025, more than 600 men were detained at times when the Baltimore ICE office’s male detainee population would have exceeded the capacity for two of the cells. The suit cites an analysis of federal data obtained through a public-records request as well as records produced by DHS in response to the suit as an exhibit.
The data also noted that nearly 900 people were detained at the Baltimore field office for a period of longer than the limit of 72 hours. That figure represents more than a quarter of those held at the field office during that time.
Reeves, the former Baltimore field office director, said he was skeptical that officers could keep people there for so long so consistently — or about the video’s veracity. But he also cast doubt on the agency’s weather explanation.
“I probably would have shut down operations,” he said. “We have a major storm. We may not be able to get people out. We can’t have people stuck here. … There’s no functionality for days.”
A lawsuit over conditions at the ICE processing site in New York — where a similar viral video drew attention last July — led a federal judge to order Trump administration officials to provide clean bedding mats for the detainees held there.
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