A federal judge in Washington declined on Monday to immediately block the Department of Homeland Security from requiring lawmakers to provide seven days’ notice before they try to visit and inspect immigration detention facilities.
Without finding that the policy itself was legal, Judge Jia M. Cobb of the Federal District Court for the District of Columbia wrote that the group of lawmakers who sued to halt it would need to revise their lawsuit in a way that directly addressed the Trump administration’s latest rationale.
Judge Cobb had blocked an essentially identical policy by the agency in December, citing a provision of the appropriations law that funds the department and requires facilities to be open to congressional oversight.
The Department of Homeland Security had reinitiated the policy earlier this month, claiming that funds set aside in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, President Trump’s signature domestic policy law, were enough to fund the detention facilities rather than the appropriations legislation cited by Judge Jia M. Cobb, allowing them to skirt the requirement.
The ruling followed an emergency hearing last week, in which lawyers for Democratic members of Congress argued the funding switch amounted to a dubious legal sleight of hand intended to bypass the judge’s order. It came after the government had already invoked the policy to deny Representatives Angie Craig, Ilhan Omar and Kelly Morrison, all Minnesota Democrats, entry to a detention center in Minneapolis on Jan. 10.
In a brief, four-page order, Judge Cobb wrote that the lawmakers would need to revise their complaint. She stressed that the decision on Monday hinged on technical changes the Trump administration had made to put the policy back in place.
The decision also landed amid a surge in opposition to federal immigration operations in Minnesota, where daily clashes between residents and the more than 3,000 federal officers deployed there have put a spotlight on the Trump administration’s eagerness to use overwhelming force.
On Thursday, Mr. Trump mused about invoking the Insurrection Act to deploy the military for domestic law enforcement in Minneapolis, though he later backed off. And the White House has rallied to the defense of an agent who shot and killed an unarmed woman in Minneapolis, while increasingly supporting the use of deadly force despite internal guidance at ICE that urges restraint.
During Wednesday’s hearing, Amber Richer, a lawyer from the Justice Department, told Judge Cobb that ICE had effectively freed itself of requirements in the appropriations law.
Ms. Richer pointed to a sworn statement by a senior D.H.S. financial officer who explained that the agency was able to use a surge of funding in the president’s bill to cover operations at detention centers instead. The availability of those funds, she argued, circumvented requirements in the law that annually funded ICE. That legislation prohibits money authorized by Congress from being used to deny lawmakers or members of their staff access to conduct oversight.
During the hearing, Judge Cobb said that without more evidence that the government had completely changed funding streams, the reinstated policy appeared to violate her previous order that members of Congress be allowed to visit detention centers.
“I think taking steps to exclude members of Congress from facilities is the subject of my order,” Judge Cobb said.
The hearing on Wednesday came in a lawsuit brought by a group of Democratic lawmakers who had previously been turned away while trying to visit detention facilities.
Christine Coogle, a lawyer from the legal advocacy group Democracy Forward who is representing the members of Congress, told the judge that the government had set out to revive “the same exact policy” as before while deflecting detailed questions about the funds it was using. She said she believed the administration was “trying to make a game” out of using the new funds “to paper over” a violation of the judge’s order.
“I just think that defendants cannot win that game, because appropriations are not a game — they are the law,” she said.
Ms. Coogle raised a number of examples that she said showed that the government could not claim to have fully abandoned funding from Congress. She cited salaries for top department officials and licenses for Microsoft software in use at ICE facilities, which were all already covered with money appropriated by Congress.
She also pointed to news media reports about overcrowding at ICE facilities and a surge in detentions that had already contributed to the deaths of at least four people so far in 2026 as reasons the unannounced inspections by members of Congress were necessary.
Zach Montague is a Times reporter covering the federal courts, including the legal disputes over the Trump administration’s agenda.
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