Two Connecticut lawmakers tried visiting ICE facilities. Both say they were turned away
Two members of Connecticut’s Washington delegation have been denied access to federal immigration facilities, they said.
U.S. Rep. John Larson, D-1st District, said he was denied access Thursday to what he claimed is an immigration detention facility in Burlington Mass., which federal officials say is merely a field office.
“As a courtesy, I let the officials in charge of the Burlington facility know yesterday that I was planning to visit,” he said in a Thursday news release. “They not only denied me entry but also refused to acknowledge that their office has become a detention facility, despite documented reporting of detainees sleeping on concrete floors with no access to showers.”
An email sent to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Boston field office was not immediately returned. The facility is officially listed as an “enforcement and removal operations” field office with an area of responsibility covering Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont, according to a federal website.
Larson said members of Congress are charged with oversight, “including unannounced visits to ICE facilities and detention centers.” His visit came nearly a month after Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem issued a Jan. 8 memorandum insisting that requests by “members of Congress to visit an ICE facility be submitted at least seven days in advance of the visit.”
“DHS also determined that because ICE field offices, including holding facilities, are not detention facilities, they are not subject to the same requirements as detention facilities,” the memo said.
Larson cited federal law which his office said allows members of Congress to conduct unannounced oversight visits to ICE facilities. U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb on Jan. 19 refused on procedural grounds to block DHS from enforcing Noem’s seven-day notice policy.
Cobb ruled in December that DHS cannot legally bar members of Congress from visiting ICE facilities, but said in January that DHS did not violate her earlier ruling in instituting its seven-day waiting policy.
U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., attempted unsuccessfully last week to enter a DHS facility in San Antonio, Texas, also after providing 24 hours-notice of his visit.
“Members of Congress have a constitutional right to inspect these facilities, and a clear statutory right as well,” Murphy said in Texas on Jan. 23. “This is astonishing. And it tells you these guys have something to hide. If they're not letting members of Congress in with less than seven days’ notice, it tells you how much work they know they need to do to cover up and hide the things they don't want us to see.”
“The fact they denied me access even with 24 hours’ notice, should make everybody deeply, deeply fearful of what is happening inside this facility and facilities like it,” Murphy said.
Democratic members of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee on Monday filed an amended complaint and emergency motion in response to Cobb’s ruling, seeking a temporary restraining order blocking Noem’s seven-day policy.
“The Trump administration is using billions of taxpayer dollars to carry out a violent and lawless immigration agenda with virtually no transparency or accountability,” committee members said in a joint statement. “This is not only deeply dangerous — it is an affront to the rule of law and to our constitutional duty as members of Congress.”