The policy says that ICE field offices are not subject to a federal law that allows members of Congress to make unannounced oversight visits to immigration facilities that “detain or otherwise house aliens.”
Four Democratic representatives were denied access on Wednesday to an immigration processing facility in suburban Chicago where they believed immigrants were being held for days without access to lawyers.
Democrats asked the homeland security secretary to testify about Senator Alex Padilla’s removal from a news conference and Trump’s immigration enforcement.
Senator Alex Padilla, Democrat of California, right, spoke on the Senate floor on Tuesday about his forced removal from a Homeland Security news conference last week.
A Capitol security official briefed senators on enhanced security precautions, and lawmakers in both parties said more funding was needed to protect themselves.
Amid unrest in California, Republicans on the House Oversight Committee pressed the governors of three blue states on their immigration policies in an acrimonious eight-hour hearing that often veered off course.
The House passed bills imposing voting and policing policies on the District of Columbia, but the G.O.P. has refused to consider a measure to restore hundreds of millions of dollars of its funding.
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