Detainees describe horrific conditions inside Minnesota federal building awaiting deportation: ‘There was no humanity’

Inside, detainees allege they’ve been kept in abhorrent conditions in a building not designed for long-term detention.

One former detainee, a legal refugee with a pending green card, told the Minnesota StarTribune she was shackled at the ankles and held in a locked bathroom with three men, a room that had no bedding or pillows and a sink that didn’t work.

The detainees were fed one sandwich a day, the detainee alleges.

She was later moved to a different locked bathroom, where she said guards didn’t give her access to menstrual products, and ignored her requests for medical care even as she felt dizzy and vomited.

“There was no humanity,” the woman told the paper through a translator.

Others told the paper that conditions were so crowded they had to take turns lying down in their cells.

Detainees have also largely been unable to access their rights to legal counsel, they alleged.

One refugee told the StarTribune he was held in Whipple for a night, then flown to Houston without being able to inform his attorney. He was then released without his ID after nearly a week, only to be returned to Minnesota when a nonprofit came to pick him up.

Federal agencies disputed the allegations and accounts in the StarTribune’s investigation.

“Ensuring the safety, security, and well-being of individuals in our custody is a top priority at ICE,” a spokesperson told the paper. “ICE has higher detention standards than most U.S. prisons that hold actual U.S. citizens.”

The Whipple Building is also subject to an ongoing class-action lawsuit, which alleges detainees have had insufficient access to legal counsel.

“Individuals who have been detained at the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building in Minneapolis reveal violent arrests, extreme overcrowding, and constant shackling,” the law firm Advocates for Human Rights said in a statement last week after filing the case. “DHS is further perpetuating these horrific conditions by blocking detainees from accessing legal counsel to seek their freedom.”

In one instance, a St. Paul woman with a pending asylum case being held at the facility was allegedly unable to consult with her attorney, even though the detainee had just had cranial surgery and had significant medical needs.

“Any allegations people detained by ICE do not have access to attorneys are FALSE,” the Department of Homeland Security told KSTP of the suit’s allegations. “Illegal aliens in the Whipple Federal Building have access to phones they can use to contact their families and lawyers. Additionally, ICE gives all illegal aliens arrested a court-approved list of free or low-cost attorneys. All detainees receive full due process.”

Allegations of mistreatment inside the Minnesota facility match with evidence elsewhere that the Trump administration’s push for unprecedented deportations has led to poor conditions inside facilities and an overwhelmed apparatus for legally and humanely processing the thousands of people being funneled into detention each day.

Earlier this month, in a hearing over why ICE was failing to comply with court orders to swiftly release wrongfully detained migrants, a DOJ attorney openly said the current system “sucks.”

“The system sucks,” said DOJ attorney Julie Le, according to Minnesota’s FOX 9, which observed the hearing.

“I wish you would just hold me in contempt of court so I can get 24 hours of sleep,” Le reportedly told the judge.

The Trump administration has faced lawsuits and court scrutiny over conditions inside detention centers in other enforcement hotspots like Chicago and New York City.

An estimated 32 peopled died in ICE custody in 2025, the agency’s deadliest year in more than two decades, a Guardian investigation found.