The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, has new guidelines for lawmakers planning to visit the agency’s facilities. In a memo posted online, the agency asks that members of Congress—who have a legal right to visit ICE facilities, whether they announce their arrival ahead of time or not—give 72 hours’ notice before dropping in on ICE field offices.
Though the new policies continue to allow members of Congress to visit detention facilities unannounced, they appear designed to impede lawmakers from interfering with ICE’s legal proceedings, which largely take place at their field offices.
The memo acknowledges that DHS is not legally allowed to prevent members of Congress from entering ICE detention centers, but argues that because ICE field offices are separate from detention centers, they are eligible for tighter visitation restrictions.
According to the new guidelines, members of Congress must request access by emailing ICE with the date, time, and location of their visit, and requests will only be processed during standard business hours.
The memo also warns that ICE officials may restrict “group size or visitor itinerary” after receiving the request. The guidelines are slightly less restrictive when it comes to congressional staffers, asking for 24 hours’ notice.
The memo also contained new rules for interacting with detainees. If members of Congress do not have a specific detainee they wish to visit, they must inform the office at least 48 hours in advance so that ICE agents can distribute “sign-up sheets” to detainees who may wish to speak with the congressperson.
Under the new guidelines, members of Congress and their staffers are also barred from taking photos or videos at the field offices.
Responding to the policy change, Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS) told The Hill that the new guidelines were “not only unprecedented,” but “an affront to the Constitution and federal law.”
Department of Homeland Security 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 [of Congress] schedule visits in advance,” Thompson told The Hill. “No matter how much she and Trump want to force us to live under their authoritarian rule, ICE is not above oversight and [DHS] must follow the law.”
The news of ICE’s policy change comes just one day after New York City Comptroller and mayoral candidate Brad Lander was arrested at a federal immigration courthouse by ICE agents who accused him of obstruction when he clutched the arm of a migrant man and questioned whether the agents had a judicial warrant to detain him.
Lander was the latest in a line of several Democratic state and local officials to be arrested by ICE for protesting the agency’s detention of migrants. It’s a list that includes Newark Mayor Ras Baraka and New Jersey Representative LaMonica McIver. McIver was later indicted on charges of “forcibly impeding and interfering with federal law enforcement officers,” and said she intends to plead not guilty.
On June 12, California Senator Alex Padilla, also a Democrat, was handcuffed and dragged out of a DHS press conference after directing a question at Noem.
Speaking about the incident at a press conference later that day, Padilla said, “If this is how this administration responds to a senator with a question, I can only imagine what they’re doing to farmworkers, to cooks, to day laborers out in the Los Angeles community and throughout California and throughout the country.”
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