Politics

The city office that oversees land use and zoning notified the owner of the building that Ice leases on 18 September that the federal agency had violated a conditional use permit approved in 2011. The permit limits the number of detainees Ice can hold at the facility each day to fewer than 15, and the duration for which they can be held, to less than 12 hours. The permit also bars the agency from “housing” anyone overnight.

But Ice data the city obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request, included in the official notice, shows 25 instances since January in which Ice held a person for more than 12 hours. On 26 January alone, agents held 16 people – listed as citizens of Venezuela, El Salvador, Honduras, Mexico and other countries – for over 27 hours before transferring them, according to public records obtained by Street Roots and the Guardian.

The city’s notice also said the building was illegally altered when exterior windows were boarded up without proper approval. An Ice spokesperson did not respond to a question asking when the wood was installed, but photos and video taken at protests and posted on social media show the boarded up windows first appeared around 16 June.