Three Democratic members of Congress from California and two from New York said over the weekend that they were barred from entering federal detention centers in their respective states to check on people who were detained in immigration raids or in protests against the raids.
All five members — Representatives Maxine Waters, Jimmy Gomez and Norma Torres of California and Representatives Adriano Espaillat and Nydia Velázquez of New York — said that they should have been allowed to enter the buildings as members of Congress.
The California representatives said they were turned away from the Metropolitan Detention Center in downtown Los Angeles. Ms. Waters said on Sunday that she had tried to see David Huerta, the president of the Service Employees International Union California, on Friday, after he was arrested and apparently injured while protesting the raids.
Video of Ms. Waters outside the building showed a door being shut in her face as she said, “I need to get in.”
“I don’t know why he was targeted,” Ms. Waters said of Mr. Huerta, who is a U.S. citizen. “I don’t know what they’re doing with him.” Mr. Huerta is expected to be arraigned on Monday.
Federal officials, who have said Mr. Huerta was blocking a law enforcement vehicle, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Ms. Waters’ account.
Mr. Gomez and Ms. Torres had said they were denied entry to the same building on Saturday. In a video, Mr. Gomez said that as members of Congress, he and Ms. Torres have the right to oversee the well-being of those being detained and their conditions. He said that officers outside the building had sprayed an irritant into the air to deter them from approaching.
“This is really to prevent us from doing our jobs,” Mr. Gomez said. Ms. Torres said that it was “unconscionable” that federal agents would spray an irritant at members of Congress.
In New York, Mr. Espaillat and Ms. Velázquez said that they were barred on Sunday from entering an immigration detention facility on the 10th floor of the Jacob K. Javits Federal Building in Manhattan to investigate reports of overcrowding, stifling heat and migrants sleeping on bathroom floors.
They said officials had denied them access because it was a “sensitive facility.” The building, near City Hall, has been the site of protests against the transport of migrants there by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.
According to Department of Homeland Security visitation guidelines, members of Congress are allowed special access to any department facility, including those operated by ICE, if they give 24 hours’ notice.
“Today, ICE violated all of our rights,” Mr. Espaillat said on Sunday. “We deserve to know what’s going on on the 10th floor.”
He added, “If there’s nothing wrong, there’s no reason we shouldn’t be able to go in to see it.”
Ms. Velázquez said she was outraged about being turned away. “Our duty is to supervise any federal building,” she said and added, “This is not Russia; this is the United States of America. The president of the United States is not a king.”
A spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, Tricia McLaughlin, said that the lawmakers had shown up unannounced. ICE officials had told them, she said, that they “would be happy to give them a tour with a little more notice, when it would not disrupt ongoing law enforcement activities and sensitive law enforcement items could be put away.”
The representatives arrived a day after dozens of protesters at the New York complex tried to block ICE vehicles carrying migrants. That demonstration erupted in a clash with police officers, some of whom blasted protesters with pepper spray. The police said 22 people were taken into custody.
The nonprofit Immigrant Defenders Law Center said in a statement on Saturday that it had received reports that federal agents had refused to allow those detained at federal immigration facilities access to lawyers, and that people had been denied food or water for more than 12 hours. Lindsay Toczylowski, the president of the organization, said in a statement that the Department of Homeland Security was “treating federal facilities like islands of lawlessness within our city.”
Jesus Jiménez is a Times reporter covering Southern California.
Chelsia Rose Marcius is a criminal justice reporter for The Times, covering the New York Police Department.
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