WASHINGTON — The Department of Homeland Security has imposed new limits on visits by members of Congress and their staff to immigration enforcement facilities, intensifying a conflict between federal immigration officials and Democratic lawmakers.
Under federal law, members of Congress can make unannounced oversight visits to immigration facilities that “detain or otherwise house aliens.” Lawmakers are not required to provide “prior notice of the intent to enter a facility” to conduct oversight, though members of their staff must request a visit at least 24 hours in advance.
But in guidance released this month, Immigration and Customs Enforcement asks members of Congress to give at least 72 hours’ notice for a visit to its facilities. Asked about the policy, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, went even further, suggesting that federal officials would not be allowed entry unless they provided a week’s notice.
“A week is sufficient to ensure no intrusion on the president’s constitutional authority,” the spokesperson, Tricia McLaughlin, said in a statement. She added that “any request to shorten that time must be approved” by the homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem.
In its new guidance, ICE asserts that it has broad power to “deny a request or otherwise cancel, reschedule or terminate a tour or visit” by lawmakers or their staff under a number of circumstances that include “operational concerns” or if “facility management or other ICE officials deem it appropriate to do so.”
The new policy, updated since February, also denies that ICE field offices are subject to the provision in federal law about congressional oversight visits.
Democratic lawmakers in California, Illinois and New York have been turned away from ICE facilities recently, sometimes after trying in vain for hours to gain access to buildings that they say they are authorized to visit.
Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, the top Democrat on the Homeland Security Committee, criticized the new ICE policy as an attempt to skirt congressional oversight. In a statement, he said the new guidance was “an affront to the Constitution and federal law.”
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