Trump Administration Says Democrats Can’t Visit ICE Facilities During Shutdown

Members of Congress can’t conduct oversight visits to detention centers during the government shutdown, the Trump administration has argued.

While Immigration and Customs Enforcement is moving forward with widespread raids across the country, the agency says it doesn’t have the staff necessary to coordinate the congressional visits, as Politico first reported Monday.

One Democrat says it’s an excuse to block oversight.

“ICE wants to operate in the dark, and this president wants to let them,” Rep. LaMonica McIver, a New Jersey Democrat, said in a statement first shared with NOTUS.

“Trump and Republicans are using the shutdown that they caused as an excuse to give ICE coverage to operate without oversight,” she continued. “It’s wrong and it’s not what happens in a democracy.”

McIver is facing federal charges following a scuffle with officers outside a New Jersey detention facility in May. She has pleaded not guilty and denies wrongdoing. She faces several years in prison if convicted of the three charges of assaulting federal officers.

Congressional visits have become some of the only ways to conduct oversight of the detention centers that have faced scrutiny over how detainees are treated. The Department of Homeland Security earlier this year made cuts to staff working on oversight of immigration operations.

But Department of Justice officials notified a federal judge on Oct. 21 that the funding for detention centers was coming from the tax cut and spending package lawmakers passed earlier this year, and not with funds subject to the oversight authority for members of Congress.

Lawmakers attempting to visit detention centers during the shutdown are getting denials or auto-responses saying that congressional liaisons for ICE are out of the office because of the shutdown, according to Politico.

The 2025 fiscal year was one of the deadliest for ICE detainees, with 21 immigrants dying in custody.

Lawmakers who attempted last week to visit places where the federal government holds immigrants were denied entry. Rep. Marc Veasey said ICE officials dismissed him from a processing center in Dallas on Oct. 20. Reps. Juan Vargas and Scott Peters were denied entry to the basement of a San Diego courthouse where immigrants were detained, Vargas posted on X.

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