ICE to limit number of detainees kept in 'putrid, cramped' rooms in Central Islip courthouse

Immigration and Customs Enforcement will cap the number of detainees it holds in cells at the Central Islip federal courthouse and limit how many hours they can stay there, Long Island's top prosecutor told a judge.

Officials for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York, which covers Long Island and Brooklyn, filed a letter to a Trump-appointed judge on Friday saying that ICE will now transfer detainees in the Central Islip hold rooms to other facilities each evening, barring “exceptional circumstances,” and limit capacity inside each of the four rooms to no more than two people.

The planned changes come less than a month after U.S. District Judge Gary R. Brown, who was appointed during Trump’s first term, chastised ICE’s use of “putrid, cramped” holding rooms in the courthouse to detain immigrants “in a manner that shocks the conscience.”

Brown had questioned Erron Anthony Clarke, a Jamaican native, who said he was kept in one of the holding rooms for more than two nights and slept near an open toilet with eight other men.

Last month, Newsday reported that roughly 100 immigrants during the first 10 months of 2025 had been detained in these cells at Central Islip for more than 12 hours at a time, many of them overnight and some for as many as 72 hours.

In a letter made public on Dec. 31, Long Island's top federal prosecutor told Brown that ICE would no longer continue to detain people in the holding rooms at the courthouse beyond a 12-hour period or overnight.

Two of the rooms are described by government officials as 7 feet by 10 feet, while the other two are 8 feet by 10 feet large.

The U.S. attorney’s office said in its Friday letter that it also plans to provide all detainees a written notice of their rights, “including the right to calls with counsel, food, water, changes in clothes, and personal hygiene items,” according to the court filing. Additional meals, water, a change of clothes and toothbrushes, toothpaste and wet wipes are also available upon request.

Detainees can also request padded mats, which some detainees previously told Newsday they had access to.

ICE officials did not immediately respond Monday to questions on whether changes are already underway at the Central Islip courthouse, when they will be or if other holding centers, like at Manhattan’s Federal Plaza, will also have similar limitations imposed.

As requested by Brown, photos of the holding rooms were submitted to the judge but are under seal, meaning not available for public viewing, “due to security and operational concerns,” the U.S. attorney’s office wrote.

The government also says it has established a “Habeas Response Team” to help handle the influx of habeas corpus petitions, which are filed to challenge the legality of someone’s detention. Such cases have risen sharply during the Trump administration's immigration crackdown, and federal officials say they will now place an attorney in the Central Islip courthouse “for the purpose of assisting with compliance and court orders.”

Ahmad Perez, the founder of Islip Forward, an immigrant rights community advocacy group, said the weekend letter confirmed that conditions inside the holding cells were “inhumane, unlawful and hidden from public view until people spoke out.”

“These are sweeping changes that only happened because the truth came out and these communities mobilized,” Perez said in an email.

The head of New York Immigration Coalition urged state lawmakers to pass legislation giving immigrants access to legal representation, saying ICE's "conciliatory tone to the court is an insincere attempt to avoid responsibility for grievous wrongdoing."

"Conditions at ICE detention centers are inhumane, and ICE and DHS have no real interest in improving those conditions, including" in Central Islip, coalition president Murad Awawdeh said in an email.

Newsday's Anastasia Valeeva contributed to this story.