Many undocumented immigrants who went to their Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) check-in appointments at a federal building in Los Angeles this week were taken into custody and brought to the basement and held there, some overnight, according to immigration lawyers and family members.
It was unclear how many people were affected, but the attorneys told CBS News hundreds of immigrants were detained – dozens in the basement in rooms that could fit up to 30 at a time.
CBS News reached out to the representatives of ICE and the Department of Homeland Security for comment.
One attorney, Lizbeth Mateo, said ICE officials slated several of her clients for check-ins at the Edward R. Roybal Federal Building in downtown L.A. but when they showed up on Tuesday, they were detained and immediately escorted to the basement.
Mateo said a couple and their two children, one of whom is a U.S. citizen, spent the night in a room with no beds and limited access to food and water. Mateo said the father had previously been issued a stay of removal, barring him from deportation but he and his family were detained anyway. His wife was released Wednesday evening along with their children since she needed medical attention due to a high-risk pregnancy. He was still being detained early Friday, Mateo said.
“This is something I’ve never seen before,” she added. “Under the first Trump administration, I represented clients with very difficult cases, but never anything like this. Under any other circumstance, he would have been released.”
On Thursday evening, CBS News spoke to people waiting outside the building who claimed they had relatives in the basement who were texting them.
“We are telling them that we are waiting for them outside and to remain calm,” a woman using the name Maria to protect her identity told CBS News. “We just want to make sure their children, my nieces, have food.”
Maria said her brother was in the basement along with his wife and their two children – they’d been scheduled for an ICE check-in on Thursday morning. Their asylum requests had previously been denied in court. The family was apparently still being held early Friday.
Immigration lawyers said it was also unclear why people were being held in that basement.
“They’re having to literally house these immigrants in a makeshift detention center, which on its face is illegal,” said Juan Proaño, Chief Executive Officer of the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC). “It is beyond inhumane treatment for any immigrant and in this particular case, you’re talking about families.”
CBS News obtained internal government data showing arrests by ICE during President Trump’s second term topped 100,000 this week, as federal agents intensified efforts to detain unauthorized immigrants in courthouses, worksites and communities across the U.S.
ICE recorded more than 2,000 arrests on Tuesday and again on Wednesday, a dramatic increase from the daily average of 660 arrests reported by the agency during Mr. Trump’s first 100 days back at the White House, the federal statistics show. During former President Joe Biden’s last year in office, ICE averaged roughly 300 daily arrests, according to agency data.
The latest numbers show ICE is getting closer to meeting the demands of top administration officials like White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, an immigration hardliner who has forcefully pushed the agency to make “a minimum” of 3,000 arrests each day.
“The Trump administration, DHS, ICE have gotten way ahead of themselves. They haven’t necessarily planned this properly and don’t have the capacity required in order to continue with these large-scale deportations,” Proaño asserted.
Camilo Montoya-Galvez
contributed to this report.
