Federal Judge Temporarily Bars ICE From Restricting Congressional Oversight Visits

A federal judge on Wednesday blocked the Trump administration from enforcing policies that stopped members of Congress from visiting immigrant detention centers for oversight.

U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb ruled that the Department of Homeland Security likely overstepped its authority by rolling out a protocol requiring lawmakers to provide a seven-day notice before visiting Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention centers. The policy, announced in June, also barred lawmakers from visiting the subagencies’ field offices.

A dozen House Democratic lawmakers — including Reps. Joe Neguse, Adriano Espaillat, Bennie Thompson, Jamie Raskin and Veronica Escobar — sued the DHS and ICE after the administration denied them access to detention centers and field offices. Cobb’s ruling blocks the policy while that suit goes through the courts.

Congressional visits have become one of the only ways to conduct oversight of the detention centers that have faced scrutiny and several lawsuits over the treatment of detainees. DHS earlier this year cut staff working on oversight of immigration operations.

The lawmakers argued that ICE’s new rules are unlawful because the agency’s funding is tied to a provision authorizing congressional oversight visits of facilities used to detain or house immigrants.

“Real-time, on-the-ground visits to immigration detention facilities help prevent abuses and ensure transparency,” the members said Wednesday in a joint statement responding to the order. “Oversight is a core responsibility of Members of Congress—and a constitutional duty we do not take lightly. We’ll continue standing up for the rule of law.”

The 73-page opinion from Cobb, a federal judge in D.C., states that the seven-day notice period prevented lawmakers from getting necessary, up-to-date information about the conditions at detention centers.

“This kind of information is not static like an agency record, but can vary widely based on ICE’s pace of arrests and decisions regarding the housing of detainees. Nor is it speculative that these conditions could change over the course of seven days,” the judge wrote.

Cobb paused the lawsuit during the federal government shutdown. At the time, ICE argued it did not have enough staff available to coordinate the visits and that its funding was coming from the tax cut and spending package that didn’t include the provision authorizing oversight.

ICE did not immediately respond to NOTUS’ request for comment.