Judge hears testimony about crowded cells and overflowing toilets at Chicago-area immigration site

Source: AP

Updated 5:34 PM EST, November 4, 2025


CHICAGO (AP) — A judge heard testimony Tuesday about overflowing toilets, crowded cells, no beds and water that “tasted like sewer” at a Chicago-area building that serves as a key detention spot for people rounded up in the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.

People who were held at the building in Broadview, just outside Chicago, offered rare public accounts about the conditions there as U.S. District Judge Robert Gettleman considers ordering changes at a site that has become a flashpoint for protests and confrontations with federal agents.

“I don’t want anyone else to live what I lived through,” said Felipe Agustin Zamacona, 47, an Amazon driver and Mexican immigrant who has lived in the U.S. for decades.

Zamacona said there were 150 people in a holding cell. Desperate to lie down to sleep, he said he once took the spot of another man who got up to use the toilet. And the water? Zamacona said he tried to drink from a sink but it “tasted like sewer.”

Read more: https://apnews.com/article/chicago-illinois-immigration-ice-broadview-c1cce6344d39da317179f3619daa026a