Immigration and Customs Enforcement released new policies this month designed to restrict access to ICE facilities, now requiring members of Congress to request visits with 72 business hours’ notice ahead of planned visits to field offices. The policy also says congressional staffers have to give 24 hours of notice before entering ICE detention facilities.
Rep. Bennie Thompson, the highest-ranking Democrat on the House Committee on Homeland Security, who provides congressional oversight of ICE, slammed the announcement.
DHS Secretary Kristi “Noem is now not only attempting to restrict when Members can visit, but completely blocking access to ICE Field Offices—even if Members schedule visits in advance. No matter how much she and Trump want to force us to live under their authoritarian rule, ICE is not above oversight and the Department must follow the law,” Thompson said in a statement.
He added, “There is no valid or legal reason for denying Member access to ICE facilities and DHS’s ever-changing justifications prove this. 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.”
Every year when Congress passes appropriations bills funding ICE, a provision is included that explicitly allows for inspections by members. The legislation notes that members of Congress can inspect facilities “used to detain or otherwise house aliens” and aren’t required to “provide prior notice of the intent to enter a facility.”
The release of the new policy comes as Democratic lawmakers have been pushing for inspections of facilities to assess the conditions of migrants and others who have been abducted by ICE on orders from the Trump administration.
Democrats have faced obstruction on repeated occasions. Newark Mayor Ras Baraka was arrested in May after he and a group of Democratic representatives tried to inspect an ICE facility in New Jersey. Rep. LaMonica McIver, who was a part of the delegation, was later indicted by the Trump Justice Department after trying to provide oversight.
Baraka is now suing interim U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey (and Trump’s former personal lawyer and spokesperson) Alina Habba over the incident, alleging that it was an act of political retribution.
Similarly, ICE agents manhandled and arrested California Sen. Alex Padilla last Thursday after he tried to question Noem about the administration’s treatment of migrants at ICE facilities. New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, who is also a Democratic mayoral candidate, was also arrested by ICE for trying to accompany an immigrant leaving immigration court.
Public support for ICE is dropping. A poll conducted by YouGov/Economist from June 13 to 16 found 42% of respondents with a favorable opinion of the agency while 47% had an unfavorable opinion. The results showed a swing in favorability for ICE from +2 the previous week to -5 in the most recent survey.
The drop occurred at the same time that the Trump administration ordered ICE to increase immigration raids in California and Trump sent the National Guard to the state, over the objections of Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and Gov. Gavin Newsom.
Following the raids and protests in response, millions protested across the country last weekend in “No Kings” protests, with opposition to ICE among the top issues.