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WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 A federal judge refused Monday to temporarily block the Trump administration from enforcing a new policy requiring a week’s notice before members of Congress can visit immigration detention facilities.<\/p>\n
U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb in Washington, D.C., concluded that the Department of Homeland Security didn’t violate an earlier court order when it reimposed a seven-day notice requirement for congressional oversight visits to Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities.<\/p>\n
Cobb stressed that she wasn’t ruling on whether the new policy passes legal muster. Rather, she said, plaintiffs’ attorneys representing several Democratic members of Congress used the wrong “procedural vehicle” to challenge it. The judge also concluded that the Jan. 8 policy is a new agency action that isn’t subject to her prior order in the plaintiffs’ favor.<\/p>\n
Plaintiffs’ lawyers asked Cobb to intervene after three Democratic members of Congress from Minnesota were blocked from visiting an ICE facility near Minneapolis earlier this month \u2014 three days after an ICE officer shot and killed U.S. citizen Renee Good in Minneapolis.<\/p>\n
Last month, Cobb temporarily blocked an administration oversight visit policy. She ruled Dec. 17 that it is likely illegal for ICE to demand a week\u2019s notice from members of Congress seeking to visit and observe conditions in ICE facilities.<\/p>\n
A day after Good\u2019s death, U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem secretly signed a new memorandum reinstating another seven-day notice requirement. Plaintiffs\u2019 lawyers from the Democracy Forward legal advocacy group said DHS didn’t disclose the latest policy until after U.S. Reps. Ilhan Omar, Kelly Morrison and Angie Craig initially were turned away from an ICE facility in the Minneapolis federal building.<\/p>\n
On Monday, Cobb ruled that the new policy is similar but different than the one announced in June 2025.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Court emphasizes that it denies Plaintiffs\u2019 motion only because it is not the proper avenue to challenge Defendants\u2019 January 8, 2026 memorandum and the policy stated therein, rather than based on any kind of finding that the policy is lawful,\u201d she wrote.<\/p>\n
Democracy Forward spokeswoman Melissa Schwartz said they were reviewing the judge’s latest order.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will continue to use every legal tool available to stop the administration\u2019s efforts to hide from congressional oversight,\u201d she said in a statement.<\/p>\n
Twelve other Democratic members of Congress sued in Washington to challenge ICE\u2019s amended visitor policies after they were denied entry to detention facilities. Their lawsuit accused Republican President Donald Trump\u2019s administration of obstructing congressional oversight of the centers during its nationwide surge in immigration enforcement operations.<\/p>\n
A law bars DHS from using appropriated general funds to prevent members of Congress from entering DHS facilities for oversight purposes. Plaintiffs\u2019 attorneys from the Democracy Forward Foundation said the administration hasn\u2019t shown that none of those funds are being used to implement the latest notice policy.<\/p>\n
“Appropriations are not a game. They are a law,” plaintiffs\u2019 attorney Christine Coogle said during a hearing Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Justice Department attorney Amber Richer said the Jan. 8 policy signed by Noem is distinct from the policies that Cobb suspended last month.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is really a challenge to a new policy,\u201d Richer said.<\/p>\n
Plaintiffs’ attorneys said the matter is urgent because members of Congress are negotiating funding for DHS and ICE for the next fiscal year with DHS\u2019s annual appropriations due to expire Jan. 30.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a critical moment for oversight, and members of Congress must be able to conduct oversight at ICE detention facilities, without notice, to obtain urgent and essential information for ongoing funding negotiations,\u201d the lawyers wrote.<\/p>\n
Government attorneys have said it\u2019s merely speculative for the legislators to be concerned that conditions in ICE facilities change over the course of a week. But the judge rejected those arguments last month.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe changing conditions within ICE facilities means that it is likely impossible for a Member of Congress to reconstruct the conditions at a facility on the day that they initially sought to enter,\u201d wrote Cobb, who was nominated to the bench by Democratic President Joe Biden.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n