Judge says allegations of conditions at Chicago-area immigration site are 'disgusting'

The government is accused of denying detainees proper access to food, water and medical care and coercing them to sign documents they don’t understand. Without that knowledge, and without private communication with lawyers, they have unknowingly relinquished their rights and faced deportation, the lawsuit alleges.

“This is not an issue of not getting a toilet or a Fiji water bottle,” attorney Alexa Van Brunt of the MacArthur Justice Center told the judge. “These are a set of dire conditions that when taken together paint a harrowing picture.”

U.S. District Judge Robert Gettleman presided at the hearing just days after Van Brunt’s group and the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois filed the lawsuit and sought a temporary restraining order. The judge said the allegations are “disgusting.”