ICE Must Allow Lawmaker Surprise Visits at Detention Centers (2)

The Trump administration must allow members of Congress to conduct surprise oversight visits of immigration detention facilities, a Washington federal judge ruled.

Judge Jia Cobb of the US District Court for the District of Columbia held on Monday that the Department of Homeland Security’s recent policy requiring lawmakers to give seven days’ notice before visiting detention facilities is likely illegal.

She reasoned that DHS appeared to have spent money creating and enforcing the notice policy from annual appropriations, despite language in the spending package blocking funds from being used to limit lawmaker access to the facilities.

“The power of the purse rests with Congress, and even a deep-pocketed agency must comply with Congress’s restrictions on the permissible uses of appropriated funds,” Cobb said.

Cobb also found that the House Democrats who challenged the visitation policy have shown a “significant need for real-time, on-the-ground information about conditions in facilities, the status of detainees, and Defendants’ practices.”

Her decision blocks the department from implementing the notice requirement against any members of Congress while 13 House Democrats move forward with their legal challenge.

The government quickly notified the court, less than two hours after Cobb issued her decision, that it planned to appeal. A DHS spokesperson said in a statement that the visitation policy “is a commonsense measure to ensure the safety of staff, law enforcement, visitors, and detainees alike.”

Cobb’s decision follows growing backlash over the Trump administration’s federal enforcement operations and conditions in immigration detention facilities.

Immigration lawyers described poor conditions for detainees at a Minnesota federal building during an inspection in February, after a federal judge overseeing separate litigation allowed them to speak with immigrants detained at the facility.

It also comes amid a partial government shutdown affecting DHS funding. The department’s appropriations lapsed in February after lawmakers failed to reach a bipartisan deal on Democrats’ demands to rein in federal immigration agents.

DOJ ‘Unpersuasive’

The Justice Department had argued in court that the visitation restrictions were allowed because they would be implemented only with funds from the so-called “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” Republicans’ party-line spending package passed last year, and not with annual appropriations funds.

It also claimed it could account for any money spent enforcing the visitation rules on the back-end, and mark those expenses as coming from the party-line spending bill.

However, Cobb found that it was “highly likely” that funds from annual appropriations were spent to enforce the visitation policy, and that government’s arguments to the contrary are “unpersuasive.”

The oversight language contained in annual appropriations bills is “no doubt far-reaching” and “extends to the more incidental but nevertheless necessary expenditures that make creation and enforcement of the notice policy possible,” Cobb said.

This would include salaries for and resources used by the various DHS officials involved in developing the policy and employees for US Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s congressional relations office that coordinates lawmaker visits, Cobb said.

Further, the judge found that enforcing a policy that limits lawmaker access to immigration facilities wasn’t among the stated purposes for the Republican spending bill, which include hiring more personnel, facility upgrades, and transportation costs for deportations.

‘Repeated Attempts’

Cobb previously barred the department from enforcing the visitation rules against the House Democrats who sued, after finding the lawmakers “made a strong showing” that the requirement is being enforced using funds from annual appropriations.

Cobb also blocked an earlier version of the visitation rules in December. The Trump administration revived the policy in January, which it said would be funded with non-appropriated money. The administration then issued a “ratification” of that directive on Feb. 2, during an earlier brief lapse in funding.

Cobb acknowledged in Monday’s decision that the lawmakers “are undoubtedly frustrated with Defendants’ repeated attempts to impose a notice requirement.” However, she still declined to bar the administration from creating a new policy in the future that requires members of Congress to give notice before visiting facilities, as the lawmakers had requested.

Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward, which represented the lawmakers, said in a statement that Cobb’s ruling shows that Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem “cannot operate detention facilities in the shadows or silence elected officials who are doing their jobs.”

“The court has once again affirmed that oversight is not optional, transparency is not negotiable, and human rights do not disappear at the doors of a detention center,” Perryman said.

The case is Neguse v. ICE, D.D.C., No. 1:25-cv-02463, 3/2/26.