For the second time, a federal judge has blocked the Trump administration from enforcing a policy restricting members of Congress from making unannounced visits to immigration detention facilities, finding a revised version remained inadequate.
The decision was the second time in less than two months that Judge Jia M. Cobb, a Biden appointee, ruled that the Trump administration had unlawfully sought to require lawmakers to provide notice seven days before inspecting facilities run by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
She wrote that the policy continued to violate a part of the law that provides annual appropriations to fund the Department of Homeland Security and prohibits those funds from being used to limit congressional oversight.
The ruling is temporary; the judge said she will revisit the issue within two weeks. But the decision will restore the ability of Democrats to conduct surprise inspections of facilities in the meantime.
Since the court’s first ruling on the issue in December, the Trump administration asserted that its financing of ICE facilities and operations could now be covered by money from President Trump’s sprawling tax and spending law, passed last summer. The law, known commonly as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, set aside around $45 billion for ICE detention facilities and another $31 billion for hiring, training and legal resources to carry out immigration enforcement.
With the money made available by the president’s domestic policy bill, the administration said it should now be able to legally impose the restriction on congressional oversight.
But in her order on Monday, Judge Cobb wrote that the government had failed to show convincingly that it was no longer using any funds authorized by Congress in the appropriations law for the facilities. She added that mounting anger around the country over the rising number of people being taken into custody by ICE had made the concerns of the 13 Democratic lawmakers who brought the suit more salient than ever.
Trump Administration: Live Updates
Updated
- Trump announces an initial trade deal with India.
- The January jobs report will be delayed because of the partial shutdown.
- Here’s what to know about the partial government shutdown.
“The court previously found that the policy imposes irreparable harm upon the plaintiffs in denying them the ability to carry out timely oversight of covered facilities,” she wrote. “If anything, the strength of that finding has become greater over the intervening weeks, given that ICE’s enforcement and detention practices have become the focus of intense national and congressional interest.”
Lawyers representing the members of Congress argued that it was effectively impossible to untangle the agency’s budget in a way that freed it of the conditions placed on it by the appropriations law. They argued that, among other things, salaries of top officials, computer software, and even “pens or papers” had all been covered by the traditional appropriation from Congress.
Democracy Forward, a legal group that helped represent the 13 lawmakers, celebrated the decision.
“Today, yet again, a federal court has denied the Trump-Vance administration’s attempt to keep their cruelty out of public view,” said Skye Perryman, the organization’s president. “This ruling is consistent with the law — the president cannot block our clients, who are members of Congress, from conducting oversight of ICE facilities.”
A spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the ruling.
The case stemmed from a series of incidents in June in which Democrats in Congress were turned away from ICE facilities while trying to inspect conditions inside.
Judge Cobb first blocked the policy in December. But as protests against ICE action in Minnesota expanded in January, Representatives Angie Craig, Ilhan Omar and Kelly Morrison of Minnesota reported being turned away again while trying to visit facilities in their state. The government pointed to a memo, dated Jan. 8, in which Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, had reimposed the seven-day notice requirement despite the court order, arguing that it was justified by the change in funding streams.
The provision prohibiting funds from being used to restrict oversight has been included in the annual appropriation for the Homeland Security Department since 2019. Already this year, as the number of people held in immigration detention has surged, several have died, including a man in Texas whose death was ruled a homicide. Some in ICE custody have described dangerous conditions in detention centers, including rotten food, a lack of access to showers and toilets, and the use of solitary confinement.
Zach Montague is a Times reporter covering the federal courts, including the legal disputes over the Trump administration’s agenda.
The post Judge Again Blocks Policy Restricting Lawmakers’ Access to ICE Facilities appeared first on New York Times.
