A new viral video taken inside an immigration holding room facility in downtown Baltimore is the latest proof of abusive treatment of people confined in federal custody, activists and lawmakers say.

The video posted on Reddit and Facebook shows at least three dozen people packed inside a holding room where a sea of foil blankets lines the ground.

Several people in the video allege maltreatment inside the facility housed in the George H. Fallon Federal Building on Hopkins Plaza and operated by federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement. They decried a lack of access to basic hygiene, bathing and food.

ICE officials in a statement Monday did not challenge the authenticity of the video. They would only say that the winter storm contributed to recent crowding because of the difficulty in moving detainees to bigger facilities.

But the reaction to the video is not the first time that lawyers and local public officials have raised concerns about the conditions for alleged undocumented immigrants inside the holding room.

Those conditions, first reported by The Banner last spring, have sparked regular protests outside its walls, the ire of Maryland’s members of Congress and a lawsuit designed to improve what have been described as inhumane conditions.

In the new video, some of the immigrants allege that they are being held even though they have legal status. Others complain of beatings. Another says an old man had been abused.

Among the people in the video is a Honduran man who has been detained since Friday, according to his wife, a Baltimore County woman who asked not to be identified by her name because of fears of retaliation. She said she received the video from another detainee and then posted it.

She said her husband has been in the country for 19 years. He has been working full time as a construction worker, but because of fear of deportation, he had been doing only odd jobs that would make him less visible.

She said she was not sure when her husband would have his next immigration hearing. She said he has no criminal history, but she still expects that he will be deported.

“I can’t afford a lawyer,” she wrote during an interview through text with The Banner. ”I called many lawyers and there is no hope for him.”

“He is the only love I have,” she wrote.

The Banner has not been able to independently verify the video’s authenticity. But leaders with CASA, the largest immigrant advocacy group in the state, said they had confirmed that it is real. Maryland’s two U.S. senators also gave the video credence after they both tweeted about it.

“CASA has verified this video and is in contact with individuals directly impacted by the conditions documented” in it, said Ama Frimpong, the legal director for the organization.

Responding Monday to questions about the video, Casey Latimer, spokesperson for the Baltimore ICE field office, said in a statement that “widespread flight cancellations and severe weather conditions have significantly disrupted transportation, making it nearly impossible for ICE to safely transfer detainees from processing facilities like this one in Baltimore, to longterm detention facilities as scheduled.”

Latimer added that ICE will be keeping detainees at the holding facility “until it is safe to continue flight operations” and said they have access to “appropriate care including food, blankets, water, and medical services.”

One former ICE official wondered, however, whether the viral video he reviewed was actually shot in Baltimore.

In an interview, Darius Reeves, former director of ICE’s Baltimore field office, questioned whether the video was authentic, saying that the holding cells in the video appeared to be much larger than those at the Hopkins Plaza building, where he worked for several years.

Separately, Reeves challenged the explanation by the Trump administration blaming the overcrowding on the recent storm. Officials in the field office, he said, should have been able to see the storm coming and halted arrests days in advance.

“I would have shut down operations, emptied out the people that we had, get them out of there, and then hunker down and see how this storm progresses,” Reeves said.

On Tuesday, Ammar Moussa, a spokesperson for Gov. Wes Moore, called the conditions shown in the video “deeply disturbing and completely unacceptable.”

“Every person in custody deserves basic safety, humane treatment, and access to medical care,” Moussa said.

He added that the video is “consistent with reports we have heard from lawyers and why we applauded the Attorney General’s support of litigation challenging conditions at this facility.”

“We are taking this seriously and we are demanding immediate action from the Trump administration to fix these conditions and prevent them from happening again,” Moussa said.

City Council Member Odette Ramos on Monday called the conditions at the holding room “abhorrent.”

She added that “horrifying” conditions included the maltreatment of an elderly man mentioned in the video and accounts from others that several people had been in the room more than 10 days.

“Another killing by ICE in Minneapolis and the several people killed in detention, as well as the conditions that our residents are experiencing at the Fallon building, should make everyone — including the Republicans who got us here — sick to their stomach about what is happening to our nation, and do something about it,” she said.

Another City Council member, Mark Parker, said the video gives a “limited but profoundly clear glimpse” of the conditions inside that others have been decrying for months.

“The video testimony of one of our neighbors from inside the facility bears powerful witness to this ongoing evil,” Parker said.

U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen, a Maryland Democrat who has long complained to the Trump administration about the facility’s conditions, pledged to step up his efforts and further his investigation.

“Like many of you, I have seen this video, and I’m demanding answers,” Van Hollen wrote on X on Monday. “My team has reached out to ICE repeatedly and have yet to get clear answers. Such mistreatment would be further evidence of the inhumane conditions at the Baltimore Holding Facility — something I have repeatedly called them out on."

His colleague, Sen. Angela Alsobrooks, also wrote in a post that she was “horrified by what this video appears to show. My team has demanded answers about these reported inhumane conditions.”

She added that the video provided further evidence that funding for ICE under Trump must be stopped.

Poor conditions inside the ICE facility have drawn scrutiny for months, but Trump administration officials have defended the treatment of the immigrants inside. In June, U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem blamed extended wait times at the holding room on a state law that shuttered longer-term ICE facilities inside the state.

In a June 5 letter, Noem wrote that detainees in the Baltimore facility were designed for short stays, are treated with “respect and dignity” and are housed to meet required federal standards.

The Banner first reported in March about immigrants detained by ICE who had been spending multiple days at the facility in a room that attorneys said is not equipped or authorized for overnight detention.

The facility has also been the center of a lawsuit first filed on behalf of two unnamed immigrant women who were in ICE custody.

The women claimed that they received inadequate medical care as well as limited access to food, water and hygiene projects that amounted to constitutional violations. The case remains ongoing.

In a December filing, attorneys for the plaintiffs included several declarations from individuals who have recently been held in the Baltimore facility. They included an Afghan man who claimed ICE withheld medication from him, did not provide soap, toothbrushes or toothpaste, and only gave him food that he could not eat for religious reasons.

The man, listed in court documents as Edward Doe, described in court papers having spent three days at the facility in December, during which he did not have access to a language interpreter. He also reported that he had to share a small sleeping pad with up to six other people.

Other declarations describe overcrowding with little room to move, no access to showers, and detainees showing signs of physical abuse. One Honduran man wrote that he felt kidnapped because he had no ability to speak to family or legal counsel.

In an emailed statement, Amelia Dagan, senior attorney at the Amica Center for Immigrant Rights, which is representing the women in the holding room lawsuit, said depictions of the facility in the video — and some of the claims made by those speaking — match with the descriptions some of their clients have provided about the space.

“This video is yet another piece of proof that ICE is intentionally maintaining punitive conditions for the individuals caged in the Baltimore Hold Rooms, depriving them of basics like space, warmth, sleep, food, and hygiene for many days,” Dagan said.

“This is unconstitutional and is a clear effort to strip people of dignity and safety in ICE detention.”