This week, US Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) release New guidance on “Facility Visit and Engagement Protocols for Congress and Staff Members.”
“The ice detention sites and field offices are safe facilities, so all visitors can see [identity] Pre-enter verification and security screening requirements, “Specified.” If you are planning to visit an ICE facility, ICE will require that you submit at least 72 hours in advance. ”
Incidentally, it is completely legal for Congress members to visit ice detention facilities. And Ice’s attempt to avoid that requirement threatening the constitutional system of checking and balance.
Further Integrated Budget Act 2024By September 2024, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has designated “members of Congress” or one of its employees for the purposes of monitoring, or for facilities operated for facilities that are used to detain or detain aliens, or for other facilities used to modify facilities.” The DHS also made it clear that “we cannot request members of the council to provide advance notice of their intention to enter the facility.”
The new ICE guidance says, “We will try to avoid this by stating that the Ice Field Office will fall outside, not detention facilities. [law’s] Requirements. “Notwithstanding, it adds it[s] There is no need to provide advance notice for a visit to the Congressional Ice Detention Facility, the ice Minimum 24 hours notification For visits by Congress staff” (emphasis in the original). Additionally, please access the request[s] It is not considered feasible until receipt of the request is granted by ice.
The new rules also provide that council visitors cannot bring in mobile phones or recording devices, and that ice staff must be escorted at all times, and that “we cannot make physical or verbal contact with people in ice detention facilities unless previously requested and specifically approved by the ice headquarters.”
Over the past few weeks, Democrats have tried to enter ice facilities, only to be jailed or threatened. Last week, authorities charging Rep. Lamonica Mciver (D – NJ) was accompanied by counts of three felony assaulting, resisting or obstructing a federal officer. McQuiver and other lawmakers visit Last month, Delaney Hall Federal Immigration Facility in Newark. The brawls appear to have continued when authorities arrested Newark Mayor Las Baraka for trespassing, but those accusations came later. It was dropped.
Four members of the council visited the ice processing center in Broadview, Illinois, revealed this week. Access has been denied When they arrived. “We have reports that immigrants are being detained here without access to lawyers, sleeping on the floor and being detained without food.“Rep. Chui Garcia (d – ill.), one of the members present; I’ll post it on x.
DHS I answered From that official accountLawmakers, all members and staff are required to comply with the facility’s facilities rules, procedures and instructions from ice personnel. ”
Rep. Jerry Nadler and Dan Goldman (D – NY) on Wednesday. visit The Manhattan office said immigrants were protected and was rejected by Bill Joyce, assistant director of the field office. Joyce denied it as a detention facility, saying that despite the immigrants being kept on the scene, the ice simply “will hold them until detained.”
in video Captivated at the Manhattan scene, Goldman said he and Nadler had requested permission to visit despite “they have the authority to appear without notice,” but were denied.
This is not a feature of the agency: Earlier this year, the ICE agent denied reasonCJ Ciaramella to the Immigration Court in a federal detention facility in Miami has access to Immigration Court, contrary to both federal law and guidance listed on the agency’s own website. (ICE later confirmed that the facility was “open to the public every day.”
Regardless of the actual conditions of the ice facility, it is clear that the intent of the Congress is to establish the role of legislative oversight of the executive body. Check and balance It is an important feature of the US government. Each of the three branches has the power to restrain the other branches.
The ice flies in the face of the clear meaning of the Constitution to assert all the inclusive rights to operate in the dark, apart from the prying eyes, even in comparable branches of the government.
“This illegal policy is a smokescreen that refuses membership visits to the domestic ice office, and holds immigrants, sometimes even US citizens, for days at a time. So they are always subject to surveillance and inspection.” statement. “There is no valid or legal reason to deny members access to ice facilities. The ever-changing justification of DHS proves this… If there is nothing to hide in the ice, the DHS must make the facility available.”
