The conditions in the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s temporary hold room in downtown Baltimore used to house immigrants are so poor that they would violate standards if it were a state-run facility, the office of Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown said in a new court filing.

In a legal filing Wednesday afternoon, Brown’s office put its own weight behind two immigrant plaintiffs suing the federal agency over the conditions they endured while in ICE custody at the Fallon Federal Building, the location of ICE’s Baltimore field office. Brown, in court papers, also urged a federal judge to prevent ICE from keeping detainees in the hold room for more than 12 hours.

The two unnamed plaintiffs, both women from Central America, allege they were given limited access to water and food and were denied medical attention, including access to medication for their ailments, while in ICE custody.

The women also allege they were held for more than 36 hours within the facility, which is designed as a temporary space for detainees while ICE processes them ahead of sending them to a longer-term facility. A federal judge in May barred ICE from deporting them temporarily to allow their case to move forward.

Brown’s office wrote in an amicus brief in support of the plaintiffs that such conditions would violate Maryland’s adult detention center standards, which would include three dietician-approved meals per day, adequate bedding, access to basic hygiene and legal counsel. The hold room conditions also pose a public health risk to the state, the brief said.

“The conduct of the United States, as described in the plaintiffs’ complaint ... is contrary to the public interest and clear public policy of the State of Maryland,” Brown’s office wrote to the court Wednesday.

“No individual should be subjected to conditions that deny them basic human dignity — including access to essential medical care, adequate food and water, proper sanitation, and the ability to communicate with legal counsel,” Brown said in an emailed release Wednesday evening. “We urge the court to uphold the fundamental rights of those detained at the Baltimore Immigration Court and to ensure they are treated with the respect and humanity that every person deserves, regardless of immigration status.”

Brown’s filing comes as tensions are flaring nationwide between federal and local officials over ramped-up immigration enforcement amid overcrowding at ICE detention centers.

The Baltimore ICE field office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The Department of Homeland Security, which ICE is a part of, also did not respond.

The Banner first reported in March that immigrant detainees were spending as many as nine days in the temporary hold room, which attorney said was in violation of ICE’s own policies which limit stays in hold rooms to 12 hours.

At the time, the Baltimore field office said they were granted an exemption to that rule, according to emails reviewed by The Banner.

Attorneys with the Amica Center for Immigrant Rights and the National Immigration Project, both representing the unnamed plaintiffs, asked U.S. District Judge Julie Rebecca Rubin last week for a preliminary injunction — a move now endorsed by Brown — barring ICE from operating the hold room as a “residential facility” and subjecting detainees to “punitive and unconstitutional conditions of confinement.”

“The Maryland Attorney General’s amicus reinforces a simple truth: no one — regardless of immigration status — should be subjected to cage-like conditions without access to adequate food, medical care, or basic human dignity,” Adina Appelbaum, a program director with Amica, said in a statement Wednesday.

Immigration judges had previously granted both women in the case “withholding of removal,” a legal protection that allows recipients to live and work lawfully in the United States. That status would prevent ICE from legally deporting them to their home countries — Guatemala and El Salvador — but could still leave them vulnerable to deportation to a third country willing to accept them.