A group of 20 to 30 people gathered on a corner outside the George H. Fallon Federal Building in downtown Baltimore on Friday to protest a recent increase in what opponents call “detentions” by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the agency’s field office inside.

“The folks that are being detained … it is indiscriminate,” said Sergio Espana, of the activism group Baltimore Rapid Response Network at the protest organized by another grassroots organization, Free State Coalition. “There’s no rhyme or reason outside of racial scapegoating.”

ICE disputes that the field office is a detention facility and refers to it as a holding room.

Jennifer Blalock, an Owings Mills resident involved with progressive group Indivisible’s Baltimore County chapter, came to the Fallon building Wednesday as a “concerned citizen.” She said staff there told her the basement, fifth and sixth floors were all being used by ICE to hold people.

She observed legal proceedings in the building’s immigration court, where she said the judge seemed empathetic to the defendants. She also asked personnel inside whether the public could provide resources like blankets to the detainees and she said she was told no.

“There’s no transparency,” Blalock said, about what goes on inside the Fallon building.

Amy Gardner, of grassroots activism group Free State Coalition, which organized Friday’s protest, called what ICE is doing “appalling.” She believes ICE is holding people without access to legal counsel or medical treatment, a claim that is widespread on social media.

“No way, you are not going to be doing this under our noses here in our hometown,” she said.

“I am disgusted,” said Franca Muller Paz, a teacher involved in the Baltimore Teachers Union’s executive board. She advocated for the Maryland legislature to pass three bills to protect the immigrant community: the Protecting Sensitive Locations Act, the Maryland Data Privacy Act and the Maryland VALUES Act.

“You do not have to just follow orders,” she said to ICE agents. She told The Baltimore Sun her students are afraid to come to school and their parents are afraid to bring them to school or pick them up because of ICE. The threat of action by ICE “impact[s] every detail” of people’s lives, she said.

Muller Paz ran for Baltimore City Council in 2020 to represent District 12, but lost to Robert Stokes Jr.

‘Very inhumane’

Baltimore immigration attorney Halle Blitzstein said two of her clients have been detained at ICE’s downtown field office.

“We’ve always handled detained cases, but not … this many detained cases at once,” Blitzstein said of the increasing strain on her firm.

“I think it’s a violation of rights. It’s very inhumane,” she said of the holding facility’s conditions. The room where detainees are held isn’t large but remains crowded, and has a toilet and a payphone, she said. There are no beds or blankets; her client told her the food was “mush.”

Attorneys are allowed to go in and visit their clients, but family members are not, she said.

Blitzstein said she began hearing about such detentions in the field office Jan. 20, the day Trump was inaugurated.

One of her clients was taken to the holding facility after he lost his case in the immigration court just floors below the ICE field office. Plainclothes officers with Department of Homeland Security badges handcuffed her client after the hearing, she said, despite her telling them she had reserved an appeal, making the order of removal not final.

Despite ICE’s internal policies that say people should not be left in holding for more than 12 hours, Blitzstein said her client was held for days before being sent to another facility in Louisiana. A judge granted bond for her client Thursday, she said.

“U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement remains committed to enforcing immigration laws fairly, safely, and humanely, and ensures that holding facility [sic] operate in full compliance with federal laws, agency policies, and established standards to uphold the well-being and dignity of those in our custody,” an ICE spokesperson told The Sun.

“ICE Baltimore operates a holding room, not a detention facility, and therefore is not subject to the standards outlined in the 2011 Performance-Based National Detention Standards.”

Those standards have regulations for holding rooms which say that beds or cots aren’t allowed. ICE didn’t respond to further requests to explain what policies govern the field office’s holding room.

“Additionally, medical staff from the ICE Health Service Corps are on-site to provide necessary medical care,” the ICE spokesperson said.

“In the event of a medical emergency, detainees are promptly transported to nearby hospitals to receive immediate and appropriate care. ICE remains dedicated to transparency and accountability in our operations.”

Security staff at the George H. Fallon Federal Building denied The Sun entry. The Sun observed other members of the public get turned away.

Have a news tip? Contact Racquel Bazos at rbazos@baltsun.com, 443-813-0770 or on X as @rzbworks.