ICE puts new restrictions on members of Congress inspecting detention centers

WASHINGTON— The new Immigration and Customs Enforcement policy requires members of Congress to get prior approval to talk to detainees during surveillance inspections of detention centers.

This is the latest twist in ICE’s months-long effort to restrict such visits by lawmakers; these visits have skyrocketed amid the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign.

California Reps. Mike Levin (D-San Juan Capistrano) and Sara Jacobs (D-San Diego) learned of the new policy during a surprise visit to the Otay Mesa Detention Center in San Diego on Monday.

Levin said ICE allowed them in, but when members asked to speak with detainees, local staff gave them a memo outlining the new policy — dated the same day and signed by ICE Acting Director Todd Lyons.

Lyons described these visits as disruptive and resource-intensive because they distract personnel from law enforcement duties. While lawmakers sometimes request interviews with certain types of detainees — people who have been detained for more than 90 days, for example — Lyons said it takes too much time to accommodate such requests.

“This is an unsustainable burden for ICE employees and a hindrance to ICE operations given the extraordinary growth in congressional visitation,” he wrote.

Members are required to identify detainees by name and provide a signed consent form from each detainee at least two business days before the visit.

The Department of Homeland Security and ICE did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Levin said the new policy effectively defeats the purpose of unannounced surveillance visits.

“I think this is a deliberate effort to make sure we don’t hear from people in ICE custody,” he said.

House Democrats sued the Trump administration last July after they were repeatedly denied access to immigrant detention facilities in California and across the country.

Under federal law, funds appropriated by Congress may not be used to prevent a member of Congress from entering or inspecting a detention facility operated by or for Homeland Security.

Monday’s unannounced visit was Levin’s first to the Otay Mesa facility; because a federal judge in February blocked the Trump administration’s previous policy requiring members of Congress to give seven days’ notice before visiting ICE detention centers.

The administration appealed, and on Friday an appeals court in Washington rejected the administration’s request to reimpose the seven-day policy while the case is pending, saying the government had not presented sufficient evidence that the visits were harmful.

This victory for MPs may be short-lived; The panel of judges who rejected the administration’s request wrote the following: in their order Members of Congress “do not have the authority to pursue this case, so it is very likely that the government will succeed on the merits of its appeal.”

In the memo on ICE’s new policy, Lyons noted that in the 10 fiscal years leading up to 2025, ICE conducted approximately 45 congressional visits to detention centers each year.

After Trump took office, the agency facilitated more than 150 visits in fiscal year 2025. As of May 11, ICE has facilitated nearly 200 congressional visits since the beginning of this fiscal year.

Levin said his and other members’ increased visits became necessary because the Department of Homeland Security laid off the vast majority of staff at the Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties and the Office of the Immigration Detention Ombudsman.

“The volume Lyons is talking about is a direct result of his department eliminating all alternatives,” Levin said. “They gutted the internal audit and then complained that the external audit was too active, then issued a memorandum to restrict it. All of this only makes sense if the goal is no audit.”

On previous visits, Levin said he would ask for detainees who met certain criteria, such as those held in a unit of the detention center that was the source of complaints to his office. If the prisoners wanted to talk to him, they wrote their names on a piece of paper.

Levin, who is banned from meeting with detainees, examined what he could do at Otay Mesa on Monday. Levin said he drank the plant’s water (it tasted like regular tap water) and tried foods that “won’t win any culinary awards” (chili, salad, corn, chips and brownies), but it was OK.

Levin said that at one point he saw one of the detainees using a tablet and asked how the tablet worked. An employee intervened and said he reminded her of the new policy.

Observation is a necessary part of any audit, Levin said, but you can’t really know what’s going on until you talk to people in an unplanned way.

Levin said there are 1,008 ICE detainees at the facility, including 864 men and 144 women, and others are in the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service. Almost a third of the detainees were from Mexico, with smaller numbers from Guatemala, China and other countries. They were detained for an average of 130 days.

Levin said he sent the ICE memo to Rep. Joe Neguse (D-Colo.), the lead plaintiff in the lawsuit over custodial visits, and that attorneys in the case are now reviewing its legality.

So far this year, 18 people have died in immigration detention facilities, and 2026 is on track to be the agency’s deadliest year in more than two decades. Last year, 32 people died in detention facilities.

Reports from detention centers since Trump returned to the White House indicate overcrowding, inadequate medical care and widespread use of force.