A federal judge barred Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s bid to restrict lawmakers’ access to immigrant detention centers, ruling Monday that members of Congress must be allowed to conduct oversight visits.
U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb temporarily shut down Noem’s second attempt to enforce a seven-day notice requirement for lawmakers seeking access to detention facilities.
Federal agents stopped Democratic Reps. Ilhan Omar, Angie Craig and Kelly Morrison from visiting immigrants detained at the Whipple Federal Building in Minneapolis on Jan. 10. Their attempted visit took place two days after Noem tried to revive the visit policy after Cobb first blocked it in December.
Morrison and a dozen other lawmakers brought the suit against the Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The Temporary Restraining Order only applies to the 13 Congress members. Attorneys for watchdog groups Democracy Forward and American Oversight are representing the lawmakers.
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Noem argued in the Jan. 8 policy memo that the agency could circumvent the congressional requirement for oversight visits by using funds appropriated through the tax cut and spending package passed last year that supercharged ICE with $45 billion for expanding detention.
However, in her nine-page order, Cobb said that the Trump administration provided no specifics as to how it could ensure it would enforce the Jan. 8 policy without using funds tied to a provision authorizing congressional visits. A former DHS and ICE legal and budgeting official testified it would be logistically difficult to only use the funds from the tax and spending package.
“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. 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,” Cobb wrote in her order.
ICE allowed Morrison to visit its Minneapolis facility on Saturday. In a video posted to her X account Sunday, Morrison said the conditions at the Whipple Federal Building were not what she expected to see in the U.S.
“During my visit yesterday I got confirmation that the facility has no specific medical policy and no real medical care on site,” Morrison said. “There was not a nurse present yesterday at all. There are no beds, no real blankets, minimal food, extremely cold temperatures. People are in locked cells and leg shackles.”
DHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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