Immigrant women say they were held "like animals" in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention and subjected to conditions so extreme they feared for their lives.

Chained for hours on a prison bus without access to food, water or a toilet. Told by guards to urinate on the floor. Held "like sardines in a jar," as many as 27 women in a small holding cell. Sleeping on a concrete floor. Getting one three-minute shower over three or four days in custody.

"We smelled worse than animals," one detainee said. "More girls were coming every day. We were screaming, begging them, 'You can’t let them come.' They didn’t have space."

The allegations come after two men at Krome died in custody on Jan. 23 and Feb. 20.

The government's own investigators have repeatedly found serious problems in immigration detention centers around the country. The problems have persisted through Democrat and Republican administrations and range from fatal medical neglect to improper use of force.