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WASHINGTON – Twelve Democrats, including four from California, sued the Trump administration Wednesday after being repeatedly denied access to immigration detention facilities that lawmakers tried to seek surveillance visits.
The lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Washington says that each plaintiff attempted to visit detention facilities by either appearing in person or providing advanced notice to Department of Homeland Security officials and entering illegally.
In a statement, Deputy Homeland Security Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said that the visit request should be made in time sufficient to prevent interference with the president’s authority and that it must be approved by Homeland Security Secretary Christie Noem. McLaughlin said a weekly notification would be enough.
“These members of Congress may have just scheduled tours. Instead, they are driving clicks to court to fund emails,” she writes.
Among the plaintiffs are California Rep. Norma Torres of Pomona, Robert Garcia of Long Beach, Jimmy Gomez of Los Angeles, a ranking member of the House Surveillance and Government Reform Committee, and Lu Correa of Santa Ana, a ranking member of the House Homeland Security Committee on Border Security and Enforcement.
It also includes New York’s Adriano Espiratt, chairman of the Hispanic Caucus in Congress. Mississippi’s Benny Thompson is a ranking member of the Homeland Security Committee. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, a ranking member of the Judiciary Committee.
In an interview with the Times, Gomez said there is always an understanding between the executive and legislative departments about the importance of supervision. Under the Trump administration, that has changed, he said.
“We believe that this administration will not follow the law unless it faces a lawsuit,” he said. “This administration believes there is no obligation to Congress, even if it is printed in black and white. That makes this administration dangerous.”
In a statement, Correa said, as a longtime member of the House Homeland Security Committee, his job is always to oversee immigration and customs enforcement. He said he had done the role without any problems until this summer.
Reports from immigration detention facilities in recent months have included issues such as overcrowding, food shortages and lack of medical care. American citizens are sometimes illegally detained by immigration agents.
The lawsuit requires the Trump administration to comply with federal law and guarantees members of Congress the right to conduct surveillance visits where immigrants are detained in deportation lawsuits. Lawmakers are represented by the Democracy Forward Foundation and the American surveillance.
ICE issued new guidelines for council members and their staff last month, requesting at least 72 hours of notice from lawmakers and at least 24 hours of notice from staff prior to monitoring visits. Guidelines that were subsequently removed from Ice’s website have fallen outside the surveillance law, claiming field offices are “not detention facilities,” including facilities at the Loibal Federal Building in downtown Los Angeles.
The agency states it has the discretion to refuse or reschedule a visit in the event of an emergency or the safety of the facility is at risk, but such contingency is not mentioned in federal law.
The lawsuit calls Ice’s new policy illegal.
Since 2020, federal laws detailed in the annual budget edition package may not be used by Congress members to prevent “a facility operated for facilities operated by the Department of Homeland Security to detain or detain aliens for the purposes of implementing oversight.”
Under the law, federal officials may require at least 24 hours of notice for Congress staff to visit, but members themselves do not.
Lawmakers say that council oversight is more necessary than ever, and the ice is detaining more than 56,800 people as of July 13th.
Since Trump took office, 10 people have died under ice custody. Earlier this year, the administration moved to close three internal homeland security watchdogs, but revived them with minimal staff after civil rights groups sued.
Gomez said members of Congress are obligated to determine whether the administration is fulfilling its obligations to taxpayers under the law. He said the administration’s position that keeping facilities within the ice office is not subject to surveillance is a slippery slope.
“What happens when they set up a camp and say, ‘This is a holding centre, not a detention facility’? “For us, if they are willing to violate the law for these facilities, the future possibilities become more of a problem,” he said.
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