DHS issues new guidance for lawmakers visiting ICE facilities after tense confrontations

The agency’s new memo seeks to differentiate ICE field offices from detention facilities, noting that “ICE Field Offices are not detention facilities” and therefore do not fall under the appropriations act provision.

After a spate of tense encounters involving lawmakers at Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities, the Department of Homeland Security is asking members of Congress to provide 72 hours of notice before visiting detention centers, according to new guidance. Under the annual appropriations act, lawmakers are allowed to enter any DHS facilities “used to detain or otherwise house aliens” to inspect them as part of their oversight duties. The act outlines that they are not required “to provide prior notice of the intent to enter a facility.” The agency’s new memo also seeks to differentiate ICE field offices from detention facilities, noting that “ICE Field Offices are not detention facilities” and therefore do not fall under the appropriations act provision. Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, the top Democrat on the Homeland Security Committee, called the move “unprecedented” and an “affront to the Constitution and Federal law.” “This unlawful policy is a smokescreen to deny Member visits to ICE offices across the country, which are holding migrants – and sometimes even U.S. citizens – for days at a time. They are therefore detention facilities and are subject to oversight and inspection at any time. DHS pretending otherwise is simply their latest lie,” Thompson said in a statement. Previous DHS language for lawmaker visitations said “ICE will comply with the law and accommodate Members seeking to visit/tour an ICE detention facility for the purpose of conducting oversight.”