A district court judge ordered that immigrants held for processing receive access to phone calls, more space and bedding mats, among other things. The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, refuted the claims and says it will appeal the order.

Immigration officers outside 26 Federal Plaza in June. (Ayman Siam/Office of NYC Comptroller)

A federal judge in Manhattan issued a temporary restraining order requiring U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to improve conditions in the processing area on the 10th floor of 26 Federal Plaza, where dozens of immigrants are being detained.

This order follows a class action lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU), Make the Road New York, and Wang Hecker LLP, which painted a bleak picture of conditions inside the facility.

The order requires ICE to align with its own standards for detention sites, which include providing at least 50 square feet of personal space and bedding mats for each person sleeping there, as well as access to hygiene products and medications.

Additionally, the order requires those being held have access to free and confidential calls with attorneys within 24 hours of detention, plus access to interpreters if needed.

“[Detained migrants] also don’t have an opportunity to talk with immigration attorneys, because we’ve all tried, and [ICE] doesn’t facilitate calls for people who are detained at 26 Federal Plaza, no matter how long they are detained there,” said Karla Marie Ostolaza, managing director for the immigration practice in the The Bronx Defenders.

Advocates celebrated the decision after videos and media articles revealed conditions inside the facility, which the New York Immigration Coalition called “crowded and unsanitary,” with some people held for days or weeks without access to showers, bedding, change of clothes and other necessities.

Since late spring, ICE has been targeting migrants who show up to court for routine immigration hearings, part of the Trump administration’s efforts to ramp up deportations across the country.

“The Constitution requires that no one—especially someone unlawfully arrested at their immigration hearing, which happened to so many people in this case—should have to endure the dehumanizing conditions we’ve challenged in 26 Federal Plaza,” said Bobby Hodgson, assistant legal director at the NYCLU. 

However, the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, denied the claims and said it will appeal the order. “This order and this lawsuit are driven by complete fiction about 26 Federal Plaza,” DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said via email.

“Any claim of subprime conditions at ICE facilities are categorically false. 26 Federal Plaza operates as a processing center, brief intake for illegal aliens, and then transfer to an ICE detention center meeting national standards for care and custody, which are in most cases better than facilities which detain Americans,” she added.

District Court Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered that everyone detained at the site receive a printed “notice of rights” within one hour of arrival, and have access to licensed medical care between 7 a.m. and 9:30 p.m. The order will remain in effect for 14 days.

The judge’s order also says that ICE’s Detainee Locator System, a way for loved ones to find the location of an ICE detainee online, must identify people’s locations in real time or as close to it as possible.

“ICE has repeatedly lied and skirted accountability about what is happening on the 10th floor, as people are being detained for days or weeks at a time without basic care,” said Murad Awawdeh, president and CEO of the New York Immigration Coalition.

Activists and faith leaders held a civil disobedience protest outside 26 Federal Plaza on Friday, August. 8, 2025. (Photo courtesy of Climate Defenders)

ICE ordered to work with NY orgs

Individuals detained at 26 Federal Plaza are typically recent arrestees by ICE and are awaiting transfer to other, more permanent detention centers.

In cases where the detainee entered the country and overstayed their visa, they would normally be eligible for bail or released under specific conditions.

However, this was not happening at the New York Field Office at 26 Federal Plaza in recent years, as described in the case of Velesaca v. Decker, a separate 2020 lawsuit that alleges the vast majority of detainees were not given individualized assessments and that ICE essentially operated a “no-release” policy.

“My initial determination that a No-Release Policy likely existed was based on data indicating that in the period from June 2017 to September 2019, less than 2 [percent] of cases resulted in release and less than 0.1 [percent] had a bond set,” explains a recent court motion in the case.

After years of legal battles, in 2022, a judge announced a settlement in which ICE agreed that “it is required to provide individualized initial custody determinations to covered noncitizens.”

However, as things seemed to remain unchanged, the New York Civil Liberties Union and the Bronx Defenders—who had been at the forefront of the case since the beginning—filed a motion in March of this year asking the court to enforce the 2022 settlement.

On Aug. 7, a federal judge in the Southern District of New York ordered ICE to comply, meaning the New York Field Office must conduct assessments to determine whether to release or detain migrants.

According to Judge Alvin Hellerstein’s order, from March 2022 (when the settlement order was issued) to February 2025, only 0.8 percent of cases resulted in someone’s release, and only 0.4 percent had a bond set. Moreover, the judge’s decision requires ICE and the New York organizations that filed the suit to meet to develop a “compliance plan.”

“What compliance looks like isn’t clear,” said Anne Venhuizen, supervising attorney at The Bronx Defenders. The custody determination, explained Venhuizen, “is required to happen within 48 hours, unless, for some reason, there’s an exigent circumstance.” 

ICE didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on the ruling. 

“It makes me very hopeful for finding a better way to enforce people’s right to have an initial custody determination that is meaningful, that really takes into account people’s individual situations and whether they should be released or not, instead of every single person that goes through 26 Federal Plaza getting a rubber stamp, like you are not eligible,” Ostolaza said.

To reach the reporter behind this story, contact Daniel@citylimits.org. To reach the editor, contact Jeanmarie@citylimits.org

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The post ICE Ordered to Improve ‘Dehumanizing Conditions’ for Migrants Held at 26 Federal Plaza appeared first on City Limits.

By CALEIGH WELLS

It turns out many Americans aren’t great at identifying which personal decisions contribute most to climate change.

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A study recently published by the National Academy of Sciences found that when asked to rank actions, such as swapping a car that uses gasoline for an electric one, carpooling or reducing food waste, participants weren’t very accurate when assessing how much those actions contributed to climate change, which is caused mostly by the release of greenhouse gases that happen when fuels like gasoline, oil and coal are burned.

“People over-assign impact to actually pretty low-impact actions such as recycling, and underestimate the actual carbon impact of behaviors much more carbon intensive, like flying or eating meat,” said Madalina Vlasceanu, report co-author and professor of environmental social sciences at Stanford University.

The top three individual actions that help the climate, including avoiding plane flights, choosing not to get a dog and using renewable electricity, were also the three that participants underestimated the most. Meanwhile, the lowest-impact actions were changing to more efficient appliances and swapping out light bulbs, recycling, and using less energy on washing clothes. Those were three of the top four overestimated actions in the report.

There are many reasons people get it wrong

Vlasceanu said marketing focuses more on recycling and using energy-efficient light bulbs than on why flights or dog adoption are relatively bad for the climate, so participants were more likely to give those actions more weight.

How the human brain is wired also plays a role.

“You can see the bottle being recycled. That’s visible. Whereas carbon emissions, that’s invisible to the human eye. So that’s why we don’t associate emissions with flying,” said Jiaying Zhao, who teaches psychology and sustainability at the University of British Columbia.

Zhao added it’s easier to bring actions to mind that we do more often. “Recycling is an almost daily action, whereas flying is less frequent. It’s less discussed,” she said. “As a result, people give a higher psychological weight to recycling.”

Of course, there is also a lot of misleading information. For example, some companies tout the recycling they do while not telling the public about pollution that comes from their overall operations.

“There has been a lot of deliberate confusion out there to support policies that are really out of date,” said Brenda Ekwurzel, a climate scientist with the Union of Concerned Scientists, a nonprofit.

Why dogs have a big climate impact

Dogs are big meat eaters, and meat is a significant contributor to climate change. That is because many of the farm animals, which will become food, release methane, a greenhouse gas that contributes to climate change. Beef is especially impactful, in part because around the world cattle are often raised on land that was illegally deforested. Since trees absorb carbon dioxide, the most abundant greenhouse gas, cutting them to then raise cattle is a double whammy.

FILE – A woman walks her dog along the beach as the sun rises in Port Aransas, Aug. 12, 2025. (AP Photo/Eric Gay, File)

“People just don’t associate pets with carbon emissions. That link is not clear in people’s minds,” Zhao said.

Not all pets are the same, however. Zhao owns a dog and three rabbits.

“I can adopt 100 bunnies that will not be close to the emissions of a dog, because my dog is a carnivore,” she said.

The owner of a meat-eating pet can lower their impact by looking for food made from sources other than beef. Zhao, for example, tries to minimize her dog’s carbon footprint by feeding her less carbon-intensive protein sources, including seafood and turkey.

Pollution from air travel

Planes emit a lot of carbon dioxide and nitrogen oxides, also greenhouse gases. Additionally, planes emit contrails, or vapor trails that prevent planet-warming gases from escaping into space. A round-trip economy-class flight on a 737 from New York to Los Angeles produces more than 1,300 pounds of emissions per passenger, according to the International Civil Aviation Organization, a United Nations agency.

Skipping that single flight saves about as much carbon as swearing off eating all types of meat a year, or living without a car for more than three months, according to U.N. estimates.

Other decisions, both impactful and minor

Switching to energy that comes from renewable sources, such as solar and wind, has a large positive impact because such sources don’t emit greenhouse gases. Some of the biggest climate decisions individuals can make include how they heat and cool their homes and the types of transportation they use. Switching to renewable energy minimizes the impact of both.

Recycling is effective at reducing waste headed for landfill, but its climate impact is relatively small because transporting, processing and repurposing recyclables typically relies on fossil fuels. Plus, less than 10% of plastics actually get recycled, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

Other decisions with overestimated impact, including washing clothes in cold water and switching to more efficient light bulbs, are relatively less important. That is because those appliances have a relatively small impact compared to other things, such plane flights and dogs, so improving on them, while beneficial, has a much more limited influence.

Experts say the best way to combat the human tendency to miscalculate climate-related decisions is with more readily available information. Zhao said that people are already more accurate in their estimations than they would have been 10 or 20 years ago because it’s easier to learn.

The study backs up that hypothesis. After participants finished ranking actions, the researchers corrected their mistakes, and they changed which actions they said they’d take to help the planet.

“People do learn from these interventions,” Vlasceanu said. “After learning, they are more willing to commit to actually more impactful actions.”

The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

The FBI is warning people of a new scam involving fake packages with QR codes designed to steal data.

If people scan the code on a package they were not expecting, it prompts them to provide personal and financial information. They also might download malicious software that steals data from their phones, according to an FBI scam alert issued late last month. The criminals often ship the package without sender information to entice the victims to scan the code.

The fake packages, while not widespread, are a variation of a “brushing scam,” which is used by online vendors to increase ratings of their products. In a traditional brushing scam, online vendors send merchandise to an unsolicited recipient and then use the recipient’s information to post a positive review of the product. In this variation, scammers have used QR codes on packages to facilitate financial fraud activities, the FBI reported.

People should not accept packages they are not expecting from unknown sources and should not use their phones to scan QR codes provided by unknown sources.

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The FBI asks the public to report the fraudulent packages at www.ic3.gov and to include the name of the person or company that contacted them, the methods of communication used, any apps downloaded or any permissions provided on electronic devices.

Anyone older than 60 may call the U.S. Department of Justice elder hotline at (833) 372-8311.

By KIM TONG-HYUNG

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korean President Lee Jae Myung will meet Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba in Tokyo next week before flying to Washington for a summit with President Donald Trump, underscoring how Trump’s push to reset global trade is drawing the often-feuding neighbors closer.

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Lee’s two-day visit to Japan Aug. 23–24 will be an opportunity to deepen personal ties with Ishiba and put bilateral relations on firmer ground. Their talks will center on strengthening trilateral cooperation with Washington, promoting “regional peace and stability,” and addressing other international issues, presidential spokesperson Kang Yu-jung said Wednesday.

Their meeting will come weeks after South Korea and Japan secured trade deals with Washington that shielded their trade-dependent economies from Trump’s highest tariffs. The separate agreements negotiated their rates of reciprocal duties down to 15% from the originally proposed 25%, but only after pledging hundreds of billions of dollars in U.S. investments.

Japan’s Foreign Ministry said it hopes Lee’s visit will promote the “stable development” of bilateral ties as their countries work together on international challenges. It said the two governments plan to maintain close communication, including utilizing the “shuttle diplomacy” of regular leadership summits used in the past.

After meeting Ishiba, Lee will travel to Washington for an Aug. 25 summit with Trump, which his office said will focus on trade and defense cooperation.

Relations between the two U.S. allies often have been strained in recent years over grievances stemming from Japan’s brutal colonization of the Korean Peninsula before the end of World War II.

Lee and Ishiba previously met on the sidelines of the June G7 meetings in Canada, where they called for building a future-oriented relationship and agreed to cooperate closely on various issues including trade and countering North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs.

Lee’s meeting with Ishiba is clearly intended as preparation for the tougher challenge of the summit with Trump, who has unsettled allies and partners with tariff hikes and demands to reduce reliance on the U.S. while paying more for their defense.

Lee could seek tips from Ishiba, who already has met Trump, and their governments may feel an urgent need to cooperate and respond jointly to challenges posed by Washington, said Park Won Gon, a professor at Seoul’s Ewha University.

A South Korean protester wearing a mask of U.S. President Donald Trump attends a rally to oppose the planned joint military exercises called Ulchi Freedom Shield, or UFS, between the U.S. and South Korea, near the U.S. Embassy in Seoul, South Korea, Monday, Aug. 11, 2025. The signs at bottom read, “There is no need for such an alliance.” (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)

The setup also may help revive the trilateral summits initiated under former President Joe Biden, which would make more sense than dealing with Trump separately, Park said, noting South Korea and Japan share strategic interests.

“They are the only countries that have signed special measures agreements on sharing defense costs with the United States,” Park said. “Both depend on U.S. extended deterrence to cope with North Korean threats. With U.S. forces stationed both in South Korea and Japan, they are partners who need to be ready to respond to crisis situations, like one in the Taiwan Strait.”

Some 80,000 U.S. troops are stationed in South Korea and Japan to combat possible North Korean provocations and deal with regional challenges including those posed by China.

Ties between Seoul and Tokyo were rocky during Trump’s first term, marked by a trade dispute and clashes over wartime history. Washington largely took a hands-off approach as its two allies aired their feud in public.

The standoff eased as the Biden administration pressured the countries to repair ties, aiming to strengthen their trilateral security cooperation against North Korean threats and counter China’s growing influence.

Biden’s push was supported by South Korea’s previous conservative president, Yoon Suk Yeol, who took significant steps to improve ties with Tokyo, including a major compromise on compensation issues related to Korean victims of Japanese wartime slavery that sparked backlash at home.

But Yoon’s presidency was cut short by his brief imposition of martial law in December, which led to his ouster and imprisonment, leaving uncertainty over Seoul-Tokyo relations under Lee, who has long accused Japan of clinging to its imperialist past and hindering cooperation.

Since taking office in June after winning the early presidential election, Lee has avoided thorny remarks about Japan, instead promoting pragmatism in foreign policy and pledging to strengthen Seoul’s alliance with Washington and trilateral cooperation with Tokyo. There also have been calls in South Korea to boost collaboration with Japan in responding to Trump’s policies.

Lee’s meeting with Trump will come against the backdrop of concerns in Seoul that the Trump administration could shake up the decades-old alliance by demanding higher payments for the U.S. troop presence in South Korea and possibly move to reduce it as Washington shifts more focus on China.

Mari Yamaguchi contributed from Tokyo.