NEW YORK — New Yorkers were left to languish at 26 Federal Plaza in severely overcrowded holding cells for days on end in conditions so abhorrent they made ICE personnel recoil, according to evidence presented Wednesday to a Manhattan judge weighing permanent protections for immigrants at the facility.

“The hygiene conditions were appalling. I couldn’t bathe; there were no showers or toothbrushes. Plus, the toilets were in the same room — completely open — and there was no privacy whatsoever. We tried to cover the toilet with foil,” Carlos, among a group of detainees held in the building last summer, told reporters after the hearing.

“It was freezing because the guards kept the air conditioning on all the time, even at night. There was no mattress or pillows,” he said, speaking in Spanish. “We slept directly on the floor.”

The 27-year-old described facing torturous conditions after he was swept up by agents, saying Immigration and Customs Enforcement provided two meals daily, 12 hours apart, which “didn’t look fit for human consumption,” and limited water. Fluorescent lights blasting down from the ceilings were never turned off.

The young man said he spent four days in one of the cells that ICE has claimed are used for “short-term confinement,” which the agency defines as less than a day. He estimated there were between 40 and 50 people in there with him, about double the cells’ maximum capacity.

Carlos, who asked to be referred to by his first name, was one of several detainees whose testimony was presented in writing at a bench trial presided over by Judge Lewis Kaplan, along with ICE records laying bare crowded conditions and severe health hazards.

As the Trump administration launched an aggressive crackdown on immigration last summer, the holding cells at 26 Federal Plaza, wedged between offices for the FBI, the Manhattan U.S. Attorney’s Office and other agencies, at one point held as many as 175 people — almost eight times their combined capacity, according to ICE data collected in the suit.

Late last summer, Kaplan temporarily ordered ICE to clean up conditions, including by providing a safe sleeping space, nutritious meals, medication and access to lawyers. He’s considering whether to issue permanent protections.

Heather Gregorio, a lawyer for the detainees who argued Wednesday, said the inhumane treatment was documented throughout agency records.

“The evidence that we presented in court overwhelmingly shows that people have been held in horrific and often inhumane conditions,” she said. “There were people held there over the summer with all sorts of medical conditions, including heart attack risks, diabetes, seizures, tuberculosis, who did not receive care.”

Internal correspondence presented in court showed New York-based ICE personnel expressing concern about people with contagious diseases and other illnesses being packed into holding cells.

The correspondence was expected to be made public, along with photos of the secretive 10th floor of holding cells that ICE refused lawmakers access to for months.

A judge in a separate Manhattan suit has temporarily barred ICE from carrying out arrests in most circumstances at the facility. That order came after the agency admitted it had provided false information to justify the arrest of people lawfully pursuing their right to seek asylum and lawful immigration status.

Carlos was one of thousands of undocumented New Yorkers targeted last summer while following the rules by attending immigration court hearings.

He had just been given the green light to return at a later date to continue his application when he learned a phalanx of agents lying in wait, wearing bulletproof vests and balaclavas, had other plans.

“Several ICE agents surrounded me and arrested me in the hallway — just as I was walking out the door,” Carlos said, describing an upsetting scene in which agents knocked one of his sisters to the ground.

The hastily conducted mass arrests led to several injuries, including a journalist who was carried out of 26 Federal Plaza on a stretcher in September after smacking his head on the floor as agents pursued two women trying to leave the building.

“The whole experience was extremely distressing,” Carlos said, adding that during the chaos, ICE tried to trick him into signing off on his own removal from the U.S.

“The agents lied to me and pressured me to sign a self-deportation form,” he said. “An officer told me that since my new hearing wasn’t until 2029, I would have to spend those years locked up. ‘You’ll have to wait until then,’ he said. I felt deeply depressed.”

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