Ice has published new rules for members of the congress visiting detention centers. Experts say they are illegal

Washington – The day after the start of the immigration raids in Los Angeles, the Norma Torres (D-Pomona) representative and three other members of the Congress were denied entry to the immigrant detention center within Roybal Federal Building.

The legislators attempted an unexpected inspection, a common and long -standing practice under the convention’s supervisory powers.

Immigration and customs officials said too many demonstrators were present on June 7 and that the agents have deployed chemical agents several times. In a letter later to the director of ice, Todd Lyons, Torres said that she had found herself in the emergency room for respiratory treatment. She also said that the demonstration had been small and peaceful.

Torres is one of the many democratic members of Congress, states such as California, New York and Illinois, who have been denied entry into immigrant detention facilities in recent weeks.

James Townsend, director of Carl Levin Center for supervisory and democracy at Wayne State University in Michigan, said the refusals were marked a deep – and illegal – of past practice.

“The refusal of the members of the Congress to the facilities is a direct assault on our check and counterweight system,” he said. “What the members of the congress are trying to do now is to be part of a proud bipartite tradition of what we like to call surveillance by presenting each other.”

The subsequent attempts of the legislators to inspect the installation within the Roybal building also failed.

Representative Jimmy Gomez (D -Los Angeles), who was with Torres the day she was hospitalized, returned twice as much on June 9 and Tuesday – and was postponed. Torres and representative Judy Chu (D-Monterey Park) tried separate times on Wednesday and were both refused.

Gomez and other Democrats have underlined a federal law, detailed in annual parcels of credits since 2020, which stipulates that the funds cannot be used to prevent a member of the congress “from entering, with the aim of carrying out surveillance, any installation operated by or for the Ministry of Internal Security used to hold or otherwise extraterrestrials …”.

The status also indicates that nothing in this section “can be interpreted as required by a member of the Congress to provide a prior opinion of the intention to enter an installation” in order to proceed to monitoring. Under the law, federal officials may require notice of at least 24 hours for a visit to the Congress staff – but not of the members themselves.

According to the ICE directives published this month for Congress members and their staff, the agency requests at least 72 hours of legislative notice and requires notice at least 24 hours of staff.

The agency says that it has the discretion to deny or reprogram a visit in the event of an emergency or if the safety of the installation is compromised, although these eventualities are not mentioned in the law.

Gomez said that an ice manager called him on Tuesday to say that the surveillance law does not apply to the installation of downtown Los Angeles because it is a field office, not a detention center.

“Well, that said, a metropolitan detention center here even in large daring letters,” he said in a video published thereafter on social networks, making a sign to a sign outside the building. “But they say it is a treatment center. So I feel the bull. “

If no one is technically detained, Gomez said he had asked the civil servant rhetorically during their call, are they free to leave?

Torres visited the establishment in February by fixing an appointment, said its staff. She obtained another meeting for last Saturday, but Ice canceled it because of the demonstrations. When the members sent an email to Ice to organize a new appointment, they received no response.

Gomez said he thought that the ice did not want legislators to see offices on the ground due to poor conditions and the lack of access to lawyers due to accelerated arrests that would have left prisoners there during the night without beds and limited food.

In some cases, legislators have managed to manifest themselves unexpectedly. Friday, the representative Pete Aguilar (D-Redlands) did a tour of the Adelanto ice transformation center, north of San Bernardino. After being denied entry into the installation of Adelanto on June 8, CHU and four other California Democrats were authorized on Tuesday.

“It is not because Ice opened its doors to a few members of the congress does not excuse their inflammatory tactics to respond to expulsion quotas,” said representative Mark Takano (D-Riverside), who visited Adelanto with CHU. “Responsibility means showing a coherent accessibility model, not just a unique event.”

The representatives learned that the installation was now at full capacity with 1,100 inmates, against 300 a month ago. CHU said they had spoken to detainees in Los Angeles raids, who, she said, were not criminals and who now live in inhuman conditions – without enough food, unable to change their underwear for 10 days or call their families and their lawyers.

CHU said that the group arrived early and was held in the hall to avoid rehearsal of their previous attempt, when the installation guards kept them outside the property, locking a fence.

Tom Homan, President Trump’s border policy advisor, leaves a meeting with the Republican senators who strive to cancel $ 9.4 billion in expenses already approved by Congress in Capitol in Washington on June 11.

(J. Scott Applewhite / Associated Press)

In an interview with Times this month, Trump’s border border policies, Tom Homan, said that the members of the Congress were invited to carry out surveillance, but that they must first contact the establishment to make arrangements. The agency must take care of the safety and safety of the installation, officers and prisoners, he said.

“Please enter and look at them,” he said. “These are the best installations that money can buy, the highest standards of detention in the industry. But there is a good way and a bad way to do it. ”

Tricia McLaughlin, assistant internal security secretary, said in a statement to the time that requests for visits are necessary because “ice forces have seen an increase in aggressions, disturbances and obstructions to application, including by politicians themselves.”

She added that requests for visits should be made with enough time – “a week is sufficient” – so as not to interfere with the authority of the president under article II of the Constitution to supervise the functions of executive branches.

DHS assistant secretary for public affairs Tricia McLaughlin, flanked by the deputy director of immigration and customs application Madison Sheahan, on the left, and the acting director of Ice Todd Lyons, speaks for a press conference in Washington on May 21.

(Jose Luis Magana / Associated Press)

Representative Bennie Thompson (d-Miss.), Classification member of the House’s internal security committee, criticized the directives on X on Wednesday.

“This illegal policy is a smoke screen to refuse visits to members in ice offices across the country, which hold migrants – and sometimes even American citizens – for days at the same time,” he wrote. “They are therefore installations and are subject to surveillance and inspection at any time. Dhs pretending the opposite is simply their last lie. ”

Townsend, the conference surveillance expert, said the practice dates back to the moment when President Truman was a senator and created a committee to investigate the problems between entrepreneurs who provided the effort of the Second World War.

“This committee has made hundreds of visits to the field, and they would present themselves unexpectedly in many cases,” said Townsend.

More recently, Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IOW) went to the Pentagon in 1983 and asked access to ask questions about excessive expenses after being on stone, he said, by managers of the Ministry of Defense.

The Supreme Court has interpreted the Constitution as signifying that Congress has the power to lead surveillance to appear unexpectedly in order to guarantee specific information, said Townsend.

The members of the National Guard are held at the post at the Edward R. Roybal Federal Building in Los Angeles on June 10.

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

Senator Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) Said that Trump administration is trying to hide the truth from the public. Last week, Padilla was expelled from a press conference, forced on the ground and handcuffed after trying to question the interior security Kristi Noem.

“The Trump administration has done everything in their power, but to provide transparency to the American people about their mission to Los Angeles,” he said during a passionate floor speech on Wednesday in which he cried telling the test.

In an interview Wednesday with Newsmax, McLaughlin accused Democratic legislators of using surveillance as an excuse to organize advertising cascades.

“Democrats are in shock,” she said. “They don’t have a real message and they do this to attract more attention and make viral moments.”

Tuesday, Gomez wore a costume jacket with his backpack of the Congress and wore his Congress identity card and his business card by hand – “so there would be no error” as for whom he was. He said he was concerned about the fact that what happened to Padilla could also happen to him. We still refused access to him.

Gomez said federal officials should be fined each time they refuse access to surveillance to members of the Congress. He said that he and other members also discuss the opportunity to file a complaint to force access.

“When you have an administration that works outside the limits of the law, they say essentially:” What recourse do you have? Can you force us? You don’t have an army. We don’t need to listen to you, “said Gomez.” Then you have to put real teeth. “

The staff editor Nathan Solis in Los Angeles contributed to this report.