When Rep. Rob Menendez (D-Jersey City) and two of his colleagues paid an unannounced visit to Newark’s Delaney Hall immigrant detention center in May, a scuffle broke out that resulted in national headlines and still-pending assault charges against Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-Newark). Not too long afterwards, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) began implementing new protocols regarding congressional oversight at Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities, including a seven-day advance notice requirement for oversight visits.
That policy, Menendez and 22 of his colleagues in the Congressional Hispanic Caucus (including caucus chairman Adriano Espaillat) wrote in a letter to DHS Secretary Kristi Noem today, is unlawful and needs to be revoked at once.
“It is imperative that Members conduct timely oversight to determine whether public funds are being spent as mandated by Congress and ensure the safety and wellbeing of individuals who are detained by the government,” the letter states. “We urge you to immediately come into compliance with federal law by ceasing all efforts from DHS or contractors to prevent Members of Congress from conducting timely oversight of ICE detention facilities.”
Under federal law, members of Congress are given explicit authority to conduct oversight visits to ICE facilities without prior notice; members of their staff can also do so with 24 hours notice. Since the beginning of the Trump administration, Democratic members of Congress have used that policy to its full effect, conducting repeated visits at detention facilities around the country – especially ones operated by private companies – with the stated goal of ensuring those detained are being provided with clean and safe conditions.
In New Jersey, Menendez, McIver, and Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-Ewing) – all of whom represent districts with large immigrant populations – have made several oversight visits in conjunction with one another. The trio visited the Elizabeth Detention Center in February with little incident, and followed that up with a visit to Delaney Hall on May 9, shortly after the privately operated facility reopened.
The latter visit, however, descended into chaos after federal authorities arrested Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, who had also attempted to join the visit but was turned away, prompting a brief fight that ultimately led to charges against McIver.
DHS and Trump administration officials alleged in the aftermath of the fracas that McIver and her colleagues had “stormed” and “broke[n] into” the facility, a claim the three representatives strongly denied and that is not supported by video and photo evidence. Noem later said in a House committee hearing that “had [McIver, Menendez, and Watson Coleman] requested a tour, we certainly would have facilitated a tour.”
A month later, Noem’s department worked to turn that suggestion into a requirement, implementing a new 72-hour notice period for oversight visits, later upgraded to seven days. DHS also gave itself the right to cancel or reschedule a visit for a variety of reasons, including vague situations where “identified operational concerns exist” or “facility management or other ICE officials deem it appropriate to do so.”
The policy drew outrage from Democratic lawmakers, who said the Trump administration was impeding on their lawfully mandated rights and allowing detention facilities to escape true oversight.
“I’ve been in a lot of correctional facilities in my life, and if you have to give seven days’ notice, they clean up pretty good,” Colorado Rep. Diana DeGette told Colorado Newsline after a visit to a detention center in Aurora last week. “We were told that the people in there were told to clean up and to spiff up and to make things look good. I’d like to see what happens normally in that facility.”
After Colorado Rep. Jason Crow was denied entry to the same Aurora facility in July, he and 11 other Democratic House members filed a lawsuit arguing that DHS’s policies are unlawful. Though he’s not part of that suit, Menendez echoed its arguments today, saying that the policies are an illegal attempt to “shield the Trump administration and private prison contractors from accountability.”
“Our duty under law is clear: we have a right to conduct oversight at ICE detention centers, and any effort to block that right is illegal,” Menendez said in a statement. “As long as ICE continues to target our communities, we will not back down.”
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