In January, dozens of detained immigrants crowded into a Whipple building holding cell where a toilet overflowed with feces, urine caked the floor and the phone didn’t work.

That’s according to “J.J.B.,” a 20-year-old refugee from Venezuela who testified before a Minnesota judge this month. He described “begging” to contact an attorney for help getting out of the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building, where he said guards treated him and other detained immigrants “like animals.”

J.J.B.’s testimony is part of newly presented evidence, including call logs and witness statements, in a lawsuit over conditions inside Whipple during Operation Metro Surge filed by The Advocates for Human Rights.

While the suit is ongoing, a judge has again sided with detainees and their attorneys on temporary measures aimed at ensuring those held there retain their constitutional rights.

Of the details that surfaced during more than 12 hours of evidentiary hearings this month in federal court, this one stands out: Records show there were zero outgoing calls from phones in holding cells for the majority of January 2026.

U.S. District Court Judge Nancy E. Brasel cited that and other new evidence in her March 26 decision extending the requirements of her earlier order to ensure detainees are given due process rights.

On the witness stand, Tauria Rich, the acting field office director for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) office in St. Paul said those phones were never turned off.

Detainees are always allowed to make calls, Rich said.

But attorney Jeffrey Dubner, representing detainees, called federal officials’ restrictions “draconian” as part of “calculated efforts to keep people from exercising their rights.”

“Left to their own devices, (federal agents) turn off the phones and hide habeas orders from people in their custody,” Dubner said at a hearing on March 19.

Evidentiary hearings on March 19 and 20 totaled more than 12 hours.

Brasel wrote in her March 26 filing that, although federal officials “maintain that Whipple continues to respect and facilitate detainees’ access to counsel,” that claim “is belied entirely by the record.”

ICE official: Whipple detainees chose not to use holding cell phones; Judge: That’s ‘unlikely’

Federal officials officially launched Operation Metro Surge in Minnesota on Dec. 1. That month, records show hundreds of outgoing calls from Whipple holding cells that fill about 70 pages of call records.

ICE operations only intensified in January. But there were just three pages of calls that month, and 25 days in January with zero calls at all, records show.

Phone records released through evidence discovery only reflect calls from locked holding cells. They don’t reflect calls from other Whipple phones, mainly those located at processing desks.

Rich, the ICE official, testified that Whipple provides “unlimited phone calls” and detainees can access phones located in and out of locked cells.

Asked why call records show some days with dozens of calls and others with zero, Rich said it’s “common sense” that detainees would choose to use process desk ones – which are free – rather than collect-call phones in holding cells.

The judge called that an “unlikely explanation,” citing large gaps in outgoing calls and the “hundreds of people detained during those periods.”

J.J.B. testified that of the approximately 100 people in the cell where he was detained,  only he and two others were allowed to use the out-of-cell phones during his three-day detention in January.

To convince guards to let him use an out-of-cell phone, he said he lied about his mother being sick.

“The other two were given the phone after seeing that sometimes my begging to use the phone worked. I don’t know if either of them spoke to an attorney, but I know that ICE did not give them one,” reads J.J.B.’s legal declaration.

The calls to his mother were short and overheard by ICE, he said.

The call records also show holding cell phones surged back into use between Feb. 7 through 9 – corresponding with human rights attorneys’  tour of Whipple.

Rich said that’s because she personally tested phones in anticipation of the visit, and directed her staff to do so.

But detainees’ attorneys cast doubt in response by pointing to the volume of calls – over 800 calls in that three-day period  – made at all hours of the day.

The judge called the claim “staggering” and also referenced how the calls went back offline the day after the court-ordered visit.

After the judge’s temporary restraining order on Feb. 12, calls did not resume until March 5, according to legal filings.

The Advocates for Human Rights characterized Rich’s testimony as, “at various points, patently incredible, internally inconsistent, contradicted by documentary evidence, unverifiable, or irrelevant.”

The judge’s March 26 order maintained the requirement that Whipple officials provide detainees with phone calls within an hour of detention, and ensure they are free, private and unmonitored.

Attorneys testify they couldn’t reach detainees, either 

As detained immigrants fought to call loved ones and attorneys from inside Whipple, people on the outside were also struggling to talk to them.

Over 20 attorneys submitted statements to the court on behalf of detainees.

A throughline in their comments is descriptions of being unable to fully represent their clients detained at Whipple, like being denied in-person visits and repeatedly calling the building without anyone picking up.

At the same time, federal officials were sending detainees to out-of-state detention facilities rapidly after arrest, sometimes within hours.

Attorney Kira Kelley, who has filed over 60 habeas corpus petitions since mid-December, described having to “cobble together” information for those petitions, fighting against the possibility that clients would be sent to a detention facility in another state where they would need a new attorney.

On the phone number used to call people detained at Whipple, Kelley told the judge, “I’ve listened to that number ring for more hours, at this point, than I can count.”

It’s a similar experience described by attorney Hannah Brown, who said she spent four hours trying to visit J.J.B. and a second person in January. She said she was given several explanations as to why she could not, including that there were too many attorneys trying to meet with clients.

“I specifically remember (the Whipple official) saying, ‘Imagine the chaos,’” Brown told the judge.

Brown described the physical layout of Whipple visitation rooms in detail, saying she “could not count” how many clients she’s visited there since beginning her immigration law practice in Minnesota since 2018.

Rich, with ICE, told the court those rooms had not been used “in decades,” then later said they hadn’t been used since before 2017. She also said Whipple staff did not have a master key to open those rooms, but later said staff had recently found the key.

She also claimed the visitation rooms are not safe for use should a detainee have a “psychotic, mental breakdown.”

In legal filings, attorneys for the DOJ said “current limitations at Whipple are the result of physical constraints,” as well as “the need for orderly processing during an enforcement surge.”

They also argued that Whipple is a processing center, and “while basic due process applies, the operational standards are often more streamlined, focusing on rapid intake rather than long-term detention.”

‘Psychological torture’ inside detention centers

Underlying the need to access an attorney is the desire to get out of detention centers. One attorney, Emily Curran, told the judge her client lost 10 pounds in 12 days while detained in El Paso, Texas, due to stress and inedible food.

“They reported horrible communication amounting to ‘psychological torture,’” Curran wrote of her clients being given conflicting information about where they would be sent.

She said one client, who came to the U.S. in 2005 as a refugee, was told he would return to his original country. “When he told (ICE agents) that a war was still going on in this country, they laughed and said that they would just deport him to Mexico or some other country,” Curran said.

J.J.B. testified he met people at Whipple who had been there for 20 days.

He said he was held in a cell that lacked blankets, beds, garbage cans or toilet paper, he said, and was so cramped that people were forced to sleep standing up.

He’s one of two people who were detained during Operation Metro Surge who testified before the judge. Both he and L.H.M., the second witness, told the court they should be identified by initials only out of fear of retaliation. The federal government has filed paperwork in opposition.

“L.H.M,” a 42-year-old Honduran asylum seeker, testified that federal officials in Minnesota denied her medical help for three days after an officer “slammed my head against the wall.”

She had had brain surgery in November, she told the court.

L.H.M also reported going without food for 24 hours while in custody and said officers accused her of being part of a Colombian gang, which she is not.

She told the judge she wanted to testify in part because she feels lucky to have left Whipple alive.

“I want immigrants, the people, to have the right to defend themselves,” she told the judge.

Attorneys for federal government said Whipple should not have to tell detainees where they are being transferred 

Attorneys for the U.S. Department of Justice argued the judge should end her order, arguing Whipple has largely complied since it was first issued in February. They cited “significant upgrades” to phone lines, IT issues that have been resolved and updated phone numbers on ICE’s website, among other things.

The judge maintained her requirement that detainees be kept in Minnesota for the first 72 hours of detention. DOJ attorneys had argued doing so is “operationally burdensome,” and “ignores the fluid nature of immigration enforcement.”

Rich cited issues with bedspace in the few county jails that have agreed to house ICE detainees.

The judge also required Whipple detainees be told where they are being transported, and be given “sufficient opportunity” to reach someone on the phone beforehand.

The DOJ said those conditions create security risks, among other things. In her testimony, Rich referenced security issues arising from the protesters stationed outside of the Whipple building, as well as a past incident involving a detainee and a domestic violence dispute.

But Brasel disagreed. And in extending the conditions of her earlier order, she ruled the drawdown in Operation Metro Surge didn’t eliminate the need for court intervention.

She said it’s unclear whether Whipple made changes to due process procedures as the result of the rawdown, the court’s requirements, or a “genuine belief” that its practices should follow the Constitution.

“The nature of the past violations are grave,” she wrote. Even though federal officials have made improvements, they “devastated detainees’ right to due process – a right upon which all others rest.”

Editor’s note: This article first appeared on MinnPost and was written by state government reporter Cleo Krejci. It is republished here with permission under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. 

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