Policy Limits Child Confinement. ICE Detained 120 Children at 26 Federal Plaza.
A Mother, Two Children, and 12 Hours in an ICE Hold Room
Before sunrise, Ingrid traveled from Long Island to 26 Federal Plaza for what she believed was a routine immigration check-in. The notice had arrived only the day before through a government phone app, directing her to bring her two children — a 4-year-old daughter and a 7-year-old son — with her. She hoped the visit might lead to some progress in her case, possibly even the removal of the ankle monitor she had been required to wear.
Instead, she says, the appointment ended with her family confined for 12 hours inside ICE hold rooms on the building’s 10th floor.
Ingrid describes concrete benches, windowless rooms, and extended confinement with minimal information about what would happen next. She says her family received a single meal during the 12-hour period and that her daughter, sick with a fever, was denied medicine. Ingrid says three other families were held alongside them in similar conditions. “Being locked up all day in a place without knowing anything, without anyone telling us anything,” she said, “is inhumane for both an adult and a child.”
ICE’s internal rules state that children are not supposed to be held in hold rooms unless they have demonstrated or threatened violent behavior, have a history of criminal activity, or pose an escape risk. Eunice Cho, an ACLU attorney representing detainees at 26 Federal Plaza who reviewed the internal regulations, says those standards narrow the circumstances under which children can be confined there. Ingrid’s account is not isolated, according to data reviewed by Gothamist and analyzed alongside ICE records. The data indicate that children have been detained in the Manhattan hold rooms in numbers that are drawing renewed scrutiny.
What the Data Show in New York City
From Jan. 20, 2025 through mid-October 2025, ICE arrested approximately 140 children in New York City, according to a Gothamist analysis of agency data obtained by the Deportation Data Project. Roughly 120 of those children were detained at the hold rooms in Lower Manhattan, the analysis found. The same data show that only one of those children had pending criminal charges.
The data also show that detaining children at 26 Federal Plaza did not begin in 2025. More than 1,300 children were detained in the Lower Manhattan hold rooms during the Biden administration’s four years in office, according to the same dataset. Under both administrations, the average time children spent in the hold rooms remained relatively similar. Under Trump, the analysis found children were held an average of two hours and 15 minutes before being transferred, deported, or released, a duration comparable to the Biden-era average.
The shift appears more pronounced in the overall volume of detentions and the length of adult confinement. Through mid-October 2025, the Trump administration held 5,409 individuals in the Manhattan hold rooms, exceeding the 5,257 held during the entire Biden administration. Adults have been held longer on average under Trump, according to the analysis: slightly more than a day, up from a few hours under Biden. Attorneys say the hold rooms function as temporary way stations before transfers to longer-term detention facilities, yet the data indicate growing reliance on the Manhattan site as enforcement activity increases.
Conditions Inside 26 Federal Plaza
The hold rooms at 26 Federal Plaza are described by detainees and ICE officials as a few hundred square feet with concrete benches and no beds, showers, or windows. Complaints filed by detainees and cited in court papers describe “inhumane conditions,” including lack of food, soap, hygiene products, and meaningful access to attorneys. Detainees have also alleged the denial of confidential calls with legal counsel, a core protection in detention settings where legal access often determines case outcomes and safety.
In August, Manhattan federal Judge Lewis A. Kaplan issued a temporary restraining order requiring ICE to improve conditions for detainees in the 10th-floor hold rooms at 26 Federal Plaza. The order became permanent the following month. Attorneys for detainees contend that compliance remains incomplete. Court filings and hearing disclosures continue to document allegations involving hygiene access and attorney communications.
At a recent hearing, lawyers for detainees described testimony from the ICE field office director, William Joyce, stating in a deposition that detainees were being held on other floors and asserting that the judge’s order did not apply to those locations, according to the detainees’ attorneys. The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to requests for comment.
The Aftermath for One Family
Ingrid entered the United States around August 2021 and has a pending application for a special visa for victims of human trafficking. Her son has been approved for Special Immigration Juvenile status, and her 4-year-old daughter is a U.S. citizen. After being transferred from the hold rooms, Ingrid says ICE confined the family to hotel rooms for nearly 20 days before release.
More than a month later, Ingrid says her daughter still cries at school and at night, fearful of returning to 26 Federal Plaza. A federal judge has not blocked ICE from re-detaining or deporting the family; that decision is under appeal.
The case raises a structural question beyond a single family. ICE policy limits when children can be confined in hold rooms. A federal court has ordered conditions improved. Agency data show more than 120 children detained at this site in 2025 alone.
Policy language, court orders, and detention data now sit side by side.
When those records conflict in practice, ambiguity is no longer neutral.
This reporting relies on document review, court filings, and data analysis. Independent accountability journalism takes time and resources.
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Get rid of the disgusting, lawless F…..g regime that is the current US government. No respect for any of them’ MickeyMouse set up ! No one is qualified for their jobs,
We need to make all the places where children are placed are with parents & caregivers. The settings must be fully humane, allow for privacy, have adequate hygiene for all, decent bed, chairs, lighting, soft textures, room to exercise, and civility 100% of the time. These conditions need to be reviewed daily.