ICE has turned its Broadview intake center into a de facto detention center, without the rules and oversight

Here’s how Yushell Alejandro Yin Del Toro sums up the three miserable days he recently spent at the federal facility in suburban Broadview, where federal officers hold immigrants after arresting them:

For sleeping, crowded cold floors or scant plastic chairs for dozens of men. For eating, sandwiches and water. For bathroom needs, a toilet out in the open, no soap or toothpaste.

“The cell is gross, extremely dirty, I never lay down on the floor, it was so filthy,” Yushell, 38, says from Mexico City, days after he was grabbed by immigration officers in Mount Prospect on Sept. 24 on his way to work from an exercise class. “Still, sleeping while sitting on the floor was impossible.

“We told the guards that the place was at full capacity, but they kept bringing people inside,” Yushell says.