TUCSON — A federal judge in Tucson ruled that the temporary U.S. Border Patrol holding facilities for migrants detained in southeastern Arizona, sometimes known as hieleras or iceboxes,"are presumptively punitive and violate the Constitution."

U.S. District Judge David Bury issued his ruling on Wednesday granting plaintiffs a permanent injunction with additional requirements for Border Patrol.

The ruling follows a seven-day trial last month detailing overcrowding, inadequate food and medical care, as well as prolonged detention for migrants arrested in the Tucson Sector, which covers Cochise, Santa Cruz and Pima counties.

"The Plaintiffs, who are civil detainees in (Customs and Border Protection) holding cells, face conditions of confinement after 12 hours which are substantially worse than detainees face upon commitment to either a civil immigration detention facility or even a criminal detention facility, like a jail or prison," the judge's ruling said.

Bury said the “undisputed” evidence showed criminal inmates in jails and even migrants in longer-term civil detention are kept in better conditions than migrants in Border Patrol custody, including “an opportunity for uninterrupted sleep,” a second layer of clothing to keep warm, and a greater variety of food beyond frozen burritos, juice and crackers.

As part of the permanent injunction, the court ordered the Border Patrol to not hold migrants who have already been processed for more than 48 hours after they were initially booked.

The only circumstances under which Border Patrol can hold migrants for an extra 24 hours is "unless and until CBP can provide conditions of confinement that meet detainees’ basic human needs for sleeping in a bed with a blanket, a shower, food that meets acceptable dietary standards, potable water, and medical assessment performed by a medical professional," Bury said.

By law, the Border Patrol is allowed to hold migrants for up to 72 hours at its holding facilities before transferring them to another federal agency, such as Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

During the trial, Border Patrol officials testified about the challenges they face in meeting that legal standard.

The average time in custody for migrants in 2019 was nearly 54 hours, according to the agency. But of the nearly 63,000 migrants processed in the Tucson Sector that year, more than 12,000 were held longer than the 72 hours allowed.

In 2016, Bury issued an injunction requiring Border Patrol officials in Tucson to provide clean sleeping mats and Mylar blankets to migrants held for longer than 12 hours.

The court added requirements forbidding migrants from sleeping around toilet areas of holding cells, noting that “being forced to sleep in a toilet area due to overcrowding offends the notions of common decency; it is unsanitary and degrading for all detainees who either have to sleep in the toilet area or try to use the toilet when others are sleeping there,” the ruling stated.

One of the witnesses during the trial, a 20-year-old woman from Honduras, described her experience in Border Patrol detention in April 2019. Identified as Witness B, the woman was pregnant at the time and talked about how she was nauseous and vomiting while in detention.

During the time she was in custody, she slept in a holding room so crowded that the only space to lay down was next to the toilet, she described on Wednesday during a conference call where she was joined by the attorneys who represented her in the case.

"That whole night I was vomiting, I felt really sick. I was very worried because I didn't know how my baby was doing," the woman said. "Then they took me to the hospital, there they treated me and they told me that my baby was doing OK."

After she was released from the hospital, agents returned her to a holding cell, where she said she continued feeling sick. Agents didn't give her the medication doctors had prescribed until the morning she left the Border Patrol facility, she said.

Bury’s ruling notably found no evidence that Border Patrol’s parent agency, Customs and Border Protection, had purposely created the punitive conditions. Instead, he pointed out that the agency has stretched resources to “provide the best conditions” under current circumstances.

“A presumption, however, exists that the challenged conditions of confinement are punitive because, in the context of CBP operations, there is no legitimate governmental interest for the extended detentions currently occurring at CBP facilities,” the ruling said.

The judge further defined what type of showers Border Patrol needs to allow migrants to take. “A shower is a bath in which water is showered (as in to wet with a spray, fine stream, or drops) on the body,” the ruling said. “A ‘paper-shower’ or ‘shower-wipe,’ by definition, is not a shower.”

A spokesman for Customs and Border Protection said the agency was reviewing the ruling, but deferred to the Justice Department "for matters pending in litigation."

The Tucson Sector's Chief Patrol Agent Roy Villareal reiterated that they strive to maintain a "safe environment" for everyone involved, including border agents and the migrants held in detention.

"As an Agency, CBP encounters a diverse population of people from all over the world. We remain committed to the health, safety, and humane care of every individual in our custody," he tweeted on Friday.

The legal advocacy groups and private law firms that filed the lawsuit in 2015 celebrated Bury's decision Wednesday, pointing to potential implications beyond the Tucson Sector.

"What the Constitution requires for individuals who are held in a pre-trial capacity, that has a much broader implication," said Caroline Walters of the American Immigration Council, one of the groups that filed the lawsuit. "What the judge's decision did today is sort of lay the groundwork for what these minimum standards should be."

Walters said the group expects to hear more detail from Bury about implementing his permanent injunction.

"After several years we're seeing that CBP has not changed the way that it treats people in confinement unless a court orders it," said Alvaro Huerta, a staff attorney with the National Immigration Law Center. "And so we're ecstatic that the court has finally recognized and made CBP change the way that it's going to do its work."

The Honduran woman who testified in court said she felt good knowing her testimony helped convince the judge to require the U.S. government to improve conditions for migrants like her.

"A lot of people from my country are still coming here because of the situation we are going through in my country," she said. "So I feel really happy knowing that they will have better conditions."

Have any news tips or story ideas about the U.S.-Mexico border? Reach the reporter at rafael.carranza@arizonarepublic.com, or follow him on Twitter at @RafaelCarranza.

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