ICE Must Allow Lawmakers to Inspect Detention Centers, Judge Rules

Judge Jia M. Cobb wrote that two policies announced in June appeared to unlawfully bar members of Congress from making unannounced visits at immigration detention facilities.

A federal judge in Washington ruled on Wednesday that the Trump administration must, at least for now, allow members of Congress to make unannounced visits to immigration detention facilities, siding with a group of Democrats who sued over Trump policies barring access.

The ruling will allow lawmakers to resume unannounced inspections of the conditions inside immigration compounds, a practice Democrats in Congress have used as they have opposed President Trump’s emboldened immigration policies.

It provisionally paused a pair of policies implemented by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement in June that limited access and required seven days’ notice for lawmakers seeking entry.

In a 73-page opinion, Judge Jia M. Cobb, an appointee of President Joseph R. Biden Jr., wrote that the new protocols introduced by I.C.E. appeared to violate federal law that prohibits the Department of Homeland Security from using congressionally-appropriated funds to deny lawmakers physical access to their facilities.

Under the federal appropriations law that funds ICE and was signed by Mr. Trump, the agency cannot prevent members of Congress or their staff members from making oversight visits to immigration facilities that “detain or otherwise house aliens.”

Judge Cobb noted that the provision had been repeatedly re-enacted every year since 2020. The provision also prohibits the agency from making “any temporary modification at any such facility that in any way alters what is observed by a visiting member of Congress.”

Judge Cobb highlighted concerns raised by the 12 Democrats who brought the lawsuit that the seven-day notice requirement, in particular, appeared intended to “obscure the true conditions” at various facilities and prevent collection of “in-person information.”

“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 housing of detainees,” she wrote. “Nor is it speculative that these conditions could change over the course of seven days.”

A spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request comment.

The government had argued that lawmakers, using a relatively recent appropriations provision, had attempted to turn routine funding into a “statutory entitlement” for “unfettered access” to immigration facilities. They added that disputes over congressional oversight access are fundamentally conflicts between branches of government, which they argued courts should “refrain from adjudicating.”

The visits to ICE facilities emerged as a flashpoint in May, after several Democrats visited a detention center in Newark, saying they wanted to conduct congressional oversight of the conditions. After a clash outside the facility, the Justice Department charged one lawmaker, Representative LaMonica McIver of New Jersey, with two counts of assaulting federal agents.

After that encounter, members of Congress were repeatedly denied access to ICE facilities as they tried to conduct oversight visits, both before and after the agency announced its new, more restrictive policies in June.

In July, 12 House Democrats filed suit, saying they had attempted to enter a facility and had been turned away.

In their complaint, they described each member’s efforts to conduct “real-time oversight” while the Trump administration was investing billions of dollars in expanding facilities and building new ones in states such as Florida and Indiana. But each member was denied immediate access or told to wait the seven calendar days.

In a joint statement, the members and the nonprofit legal group Democracy Forward, which helped represent them, said the ruling was key to restoring mechanisms to check on the use of taxpayer dollars. The budgets of agencies helping conduct the president’s immigration agenda surged this year, with $45 billion set aside for immigration detention alone.

“Real-time, on-the-ground visits to immigration detention facilities help prevent abuses and ensure transparency,” wrote the group, which included Representatives Jamie Raskin of Maryland, Bennie Thompson of Mississippi and Joe Neguse of Colorado. “Oversight is a core responsibility of members of Congress — and a constitutional duty we do not take lightly.”

Democrats who succeeded in touring other facilities, such as the site the Trump administration rushed to build in Florida, nicknamed Alligator Alcatraz, said the prearranged tour they were taken on appeared to be “sanitized” and masked the true conditions inside.

Lawmakers have continued to try to visit immigration facilities, largely unsuccessfully.

Last month, Representative Lauren Underwood, Democrat of Illinois, visited an ICE processing building in Broadview, about 10 miles west of Chicago. Though there are no beds and no working showers at the facility, which was intended for stays of roughly 12 hours, some people have recently been held there several days as federal officials conduct a sweeping immigration operation in the city.

Ms. Underwood, who toured the facility, said she was the first member of Congress to be given access since Mr. Trump took office. But when she was allowed in, there were no detainees present because of a scheduled security system update, she said.

Litigation will continue, but Judge Cobb wrote that the members of Congress appeared likely to succeed in the case.

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