ICE, DHS Again Pretend Congress Members Don’t Have The Legal Right To Engage In Unannounced Detention Facility Inspections
from the rogue-administration dept
The only laws the Trump Administration respects are the laws it gets to inflict on others. The rule of law, however, doesn’t mean the laws don’t apply to those who make the rules. And yet, here we are, seeing another flagrant refusal to comply with oversight laws just because the DHS and ICE feel they can keep getting away with this.
Last month, ICE’s refusal to allow congressional reps to engage in an unannounced inspection of a New Jersey detention facility resulted in the arrest of Newark Mayor Ras Baraka — something that occurred even though Baraka followed ICE officers’ orders and returned to the public sidewalk outside of the facility’s gates. That then led to federal prosecutors receiving a tongue-lashing from a federal judge for the arrest and refusal to dismiss the obviously bogus charges the feds used to justify their retaliatory arrest of the mayor.
It’s happening again, albeit without the arrests. But it’s still just as unlawful. Congressional reps on both coasts were denied access to ICE detention facilities — something ICE cannot legally do.
Three Democratic members of Congress from California and two from New York said over the weekend that they were barred from entering federal detention centers in their respective states to check on people who were detained in immigration raids or in protests against the raids.
All five members — Representatives Maxine Waters, Jimmy Gomez and Norma Torres of California and Representatives Adriano Espaillat and Nydia Velázquez of New York — said that they should have been allowed to enter the buildings as members of Congress.
The congressional reps are entirely in the right, even if DHS head Kristi Noem and professional liar/DHS PR rep Tricia McLaughlin say otherwise. Inconveniently for both Noem and McLaughlin, ICE’s current acting direction, Todd Lyons, has publicly confirmed congressional members have the right to engage in unannounced inspections of federal facilities.
“We do acknowledge that any member of Congress has the right to show up for an inspection at one of our facilities in their oversight capability,” Lyons said. He also said that while those visits are “unannounced,” members need to show identification and go through screening and can’t bring contraband.
By law, members of Congress are allowed to visit ICE facilities and don’t have to give any notice, although congressional staff members need to give 24 hours’ notice.
That’s what’s being said by ICE, but that’s definitely not how ICE is actually doing things. And ICE’s parent agency, the DHS, is only too happy to oblige ICE’s incorrect claims and unlawful actions by adding more bullshit of its own.
A spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, Tricia McLaughlin, said that the lawmakers had shown up unannounced. ICE officials had told them, she said, that they “would be happy to give them a tour with a little more notice, when it would not disrupt ongoing law enforcement activities and sensitive law enforcement items could be put away.”
Wrong answer, Trish. The law says congressional reps can enter at any time without any prior notice. There’s no provision in the oversight law that gives federal agencies a bit of extra time to tidy up the place and hide anything incriminating. Oversight isn’t really oversight if those being inspected are given advance notice and enough time to sweep stuff under the rugs.
But ICE continues to pretend otherwise and Tricia McLaughlin is always on hand to misrepresent the law and/or claim these completely legal impromptu inspections are nothing more than political stunts. Even if they are “political stunts” (and they are, to a certain extent), the law doesn’t say federal agencies can bar Congress members from entry just because they might they have problems with any perceived motive.
The law is law, but somehow that just never seems to be the case when it comes to this administration. Trump and his cabinet are still picking and choosing which laws they’ll follow and relying on the resulting deluge of lawsuits to continue violating laws while overworked courts try (often in vain) to rein in this administration. Hopefully the tide will turn in the near future, and the system of checks and balances will slowly begin to drain the swamp Trump has created.
Filed Under: california, dhs, donald trump, ice, mass deportations, new york, tricia mclaughlin
Comments on “ICE, DHS Again Pretend Congress Members Don’t Have The Legal Right To Engage In Unannounced Detention Facility Inspections”
I’m just going to assume dhs and ice are raping and torturing children inside the facilities.
Re:
Trump’s friend Epstein getting busted created a supply vacuum. Who better to fill it than POTUS and his masked goons?
If you've done nothing wrong, you have nothing to hide...
Even if they are “political stunts” (and they are, to a certain extent), the law doesn’t say federal agencies can bar Congress members from entry just because they might they have problems with any perceived motive.
Funny thing is that if they are publicity stunts the regime freaking out and trying to prevent them, going so far as illegally barring entry to those in congress is a two-fold own-goal, because all ICE/DHS would have to do to cause said ‘publicity stunts’ to blow up in the faces of those doing them is let those from congress in and show them around, demonstrating that they’re not doing anything illegal or of ‘questionable legality’ in the process.
By instead scrambling to prevent oversight and going so far as to arrest those attempting to exercise their legal authority to check ICE’s work they’re just handing democrats ammo to claim, not without justification, that ICE agents are engaging in illegal/questionable behavior in those facilities and are trying to hide it.
Re:
The whole deportation thing is a political stunt. The counter-stunt of inspection is negligible in comparison. Unless shit is even worse inside than we already know and suspect.
If there weren’t human beings on the line here the whole stunt – counter-stunt thing would be laughable. These places should be regularly inspected anyway.
I'll go beyond that...
OK, yes, they need to prove they’re who they say they are.
… but not to ten successively called in layers of management while everybody else inside scrambles to hide stuff. If you can’t trust your first-line door guard to verify identity, then hire a door guard who can.
Check their ID. Maybe place one, direct call from the front desk to their office to verify that it’s them. Then call somebody else to handle the door, without telling that person why, and take them directly to wherever they say they want to go, by the most efficient route or by whatever route they specify. Do not pass “Go”, do not collect $200. Any further barriers along the way to be removed by the nearest personnel who physically have the ability to do so.
Not so much as a word to anybody else in the facility or the agency unless they authorize it. When they say they’re done, you can then do any further “checks” before you let them out.
That should be SOP in every facility.
The same should apply to inspectors general, duly appointed GAO auditors, and any other legitimate oversight official.
Nope. Too easy for that to be another delaying tactic.
Nobody gets to search ICE for contraband when they raid something.
If they bend over and a nuke falls out of their hat, then sure, you can have ’em arrested.
IMO if a government LEO attempts to do something unlawful or unconstitutional, and it’s to anybody on US soil (e.g., arbitrarily revoking a visa or green card without due process), it should just be lawful for the person targeted to just ignore them. If they persist in attempting to do it, or attempt to “enforce” their unlawful actions by any means, they should be charged with impersonation of a law enforcement officer, or a similar crime. If they attempt to “enforce” their unlawful “act” via force or any similar means, they should be treated as criminals and the person targeted should be allowed to respond in like manner, and that should be automatic self-defense.
And okay, I mean, some might argue that this would make LEO overly cautious in doing their jobs. But I’d say the cost is worth it. It might make LEOs actually do their jobs properly, nearly all the time, and would dramatically reduce all this (I think) to probably near zero. Though I also am realistic enough to know that, as long as the current establishment exists, this is just never gonna happen, so… Shrug. A man can dream, I suppose.
“We’d love to give you a sanitized tour where you don’t see us violating rights, committing atrocities, and manufacturing evidence.”
Perhaps the members of Congress need to bring state and local law enforcement with them on these inspections to arrest any ICE thug who seeks to bar their way.