DHS tightens rules for congressional visits to ICE facilities
The Department of Homeland Security has issued a new policy limiting congressional lawmakers’ access to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities, a move that several House Democrats are criticizing as a violation of their right to conduct oversight.
The guidance, dated this month, comes after confrontations between Democratic officials and federal agents at detention centers across the country, some of which led to criminal charges.
Under the new protocol, members of Congress are asked to provide notice of an impending visit to any ICE facility at least 72 hours in advance. The request is in addition to existing requirements for office staffers to provide 24 hours’ notice of visits. The new guidelines say that while members of Congress have the right to make unannounced visits to detention facilities for the purpose of oversight, ICE field offices “fall outside” those requirements.
The protocol also notes that ICE “retains the sole and unreviewable discretion to deny a request or otherwise cancel, reschedule or terminate a tour or visit” under several circumstances, including if “facility management or other ICE officials deem it appropriate to do so.”
Rep. Bennie G. Thompson (Mississippi), the ranking Democrat on the Homeland Security Committee, said in a statement that the intention of the new policy was to “block congressional oversight of ICE facilities” and called it “an affront to the Constitution and Federal law.”
“There is no valid or legal reason for denying Member access to ICE facilities and DHS’s ever-changing justifications prove this,” Thompson said. “To be clear, there is no agency or department that is ‘too busy’ for oversight. If ICE has nothing to hide, DHS must make its facilities available.”
DHS and ICE did not immediately respond to requests for comment early Thursday.
Legislators have been denied entry this year to immigration detention centers in California, New York, New Jersey and Illinois. Rep. Judy Chu (D-Calif.) was denied entry to the Metropolitan Detention Center in Los Angeles on Wednesday, which she called “outrageous and unlawful.”
After they were denied entry to an ICE processing center in Illinois on Wednesday, four House members wrote a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem and acting ICE director Todd Lyons saying that keeping members of Congress from accessing ICE facilities showed a “lack of commitment to accountability” and a “disregard for Congress as an equal branch of government with oversight authority.” The Democratic legislators, all representing Illinois — Delia C. Ramirez, Jesús “Chuy” García, Danny K. Davis and Jonathan L. Jackson — said it was “irrelevant” whether ICE facilities that members of Congress are trying to access are formally identified as detention facilities, with Ramirez adding in a statement on X that members of Congress “have the authority to conduct oversight at any facility, unannounced.”
“It is the role of Congress to provide oversight,” the lawmakers wrote, demanding that the administration “allow us to exercise our right to oversight over ICE facilities and detention centers, to ensure that people being held there are being treated humanely, with dignity and respect.”
The Trump administration’s immigration crackdown has sparked a number of highly publicized confrontations between federal agents and Democratic officials speaking out against the administration’s policies. This month, a federal grand jury indicted Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-N.J.) on two counts of assaulting, impeding or interfering with a Homeland Security officer in connection with a confrontation outside a Newark detention center in May, charges McIver has decried as political retaliation. Newark Mayor Ras Baraka (D) was handcuffed and charged with trespassing in connection with that same confrontation. After federal prosecutors retracted the charges, Baraka sued the interim U.S. attorney for New Jersey, arguing that his arrest was also politically motivated.
Last week, Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) was forcibly removed and handcuffed after he interrupted a news conference held by Noem. This week, federal agents detained and arrested New York City Comptroller Brad Lander as he attempted to escort a defendant from his appearance at an immigration court.