Noem Cracks Down on Lawmaker Stunts at ICE Facilities
“For the safety of detainees and staff… members of Congress must notify ICE at least seven days in advance of congressional visits.”
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has ordered Members of Congress to provide at least seven days’ advance notice before visiting Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities, following a growing pattern of Democratic lawmakers turning “oversight” visits into confrontational spectacles that have disrupted operations and endangered federal officers and detainees.
The policy became public late Saturday after three Minnesota Democrats were denied entry to an ICE processing center in Minneapolis, triggering accusations that DHS was unlawfully blocking congressional oversight.
Politico first reported the change, explaining that the restriction was quietly implemented earlier in the week and only surfaced after the lawmakers were turned away.
“That order… forces lawmakers to seek a week’s advance notice before conducting oversight visits to ICE facilities,” Politico reported, noting that the policy appeared to explain why three House Democrats were blocked from entering an ICE facility in Minnesota.
Rep. Ilhan Omar immediately framed the denial of entry as an abuse of power, arguing that ICE was attempting to shield itself from scrutiny.
I was just denied access to the ICE processing center at the Whipple Building.
Members of Congress have a legal right and constitutional responsibility to conduct oversight where people are being detained.
The public deserves to know what is taking place in ICE facilities. https://t.co/xEWKx0fqMD
— Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) January 10, 2026
“I was just denied access to the ICE processing center at the Whipple Building. Members of Congress have a legal right and constitutional responsibility to conduct oversight where people are being detained. The public deserves to know what is taking place in ICE facilities.”
But the administration’s newly filed policy memorandum tells a different story, grounding the change in security concerns driven by recent events at ICE facilities across the country. According to DHS, the issue is not oversight itself but the increasingly volatile manner in which it has been carried out.
“In June 2025, following significant and sometimes violent incidents at ICE facilities, I directed that requests by Members of Congress to visit an ICE facility be submitted at least seven days in advance of the visit,” the memorandum states.
The document further explains that DHS disagrees with a recent district court ruling limiting such restrictions, but has structured the policy to rely exclusively on funding sources not subject to those statutory constraints.
“Funds deriving from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act are not subject to Section 527’s limitations. Accordingly, effective immediately… I am issuing this new policy,” Noem wrote.
DHS officials say the Minneapolis incident fits a broader pattern in which Democratic lawmakers arrive unannounced, often alongside activists, creating unsafe conditions and then accusing ICE of misconduct when denied entry. Following the Whipple Building confrontation, DHS accused the lawmakers of leading protesters toward the facility and violating established procedures.
“For the safety of detainees and staff… members of Congress must notify ICE at least seven days in advance of congressional visits,” DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said, citing repeated violations of agency policy and court orders.
Legal Insurrection has documented multiple prior incidents showing why DHS says advance notice has become necessary. In New York City, Democratic officials staged a sit-in inside a federal immigration facility, forcing arrests and ultimately triggering a bomb threat that shut down a building housing ICE and FBI offices.
“This was no harmless ‘oversight visit.’ Eleven politicians forced their way inside the building, sat down in the hallway, and disrupted federal business,” Legal Insurrection reported.
A similar episode unfolded in Newark, New Jersey, where the mayor and several Democratic members of Congress attempted to storm the Delaney Hall ICE detention facility, ignoring repeated warnings from federal authorities.
“Baraka reportedly entered the federal facility without authorization and refused to leave when ordered,” Legal Insurrection reported, noting that Homeland Security Investigations issued multiple directives that were ignored before arrests were made.
According to DHS, these incidents are not isolated but part of a trend that diverts officers from their duties and escalates already tense situations.
“Unannounced visits require pulling ICE officers away from their normal duties… and there is an increasing trend of replacing legitimate oversight activities with circus-like publicity stunts,” the DHS memo states.
Congressional oversight of ICE has not been abolished. What has changed is the tolerance for ambush politics masquerading as accountability. After riots, arrests, forced facility shutdowns, and repeated attempts to provoke confrontations for cameras and social media, DHS is drawing a boundary: oversight may continue, but the era of walk-in chaos at federal detention facilities is over.
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Comments
The American experiment has failed. The left wants to tear down our institutions. Let’s oblige them with a replacement decidedly not to their liking.
I vote to make Donald Trump Emperor of America.
Based on this, all power flows from the Emperor, and the position will allow passing on the position to his male heirs.
The left has shown that they like kings, dictators and despots. We shall have our own American Emperor. Just like the left embraces. Only ours will be an America First Emperor.
A terrible idea, particularly the heirs part.
For the life of me, I can’t name one example of any heirs of a crap ruler turning out benign,
I can name plenty of heirs of responsible rulers who were crap. One ascended just recently.
Indeed, this effect is one of the two major reasons why Galt’s Gulch would never succeed.
Elizabeth I was Mary I’s heir. Victoria was William IV’s heir. Going way back Hezekiah was Ahaz’s heir. Not every good monarch was a bad monarch’s heir, but it seems to be more the rule than the exception.
How about temporary dictator? 10 years.
Democrats are adept at impromptu for the camera. It is the best they can do. Governing America is no longer their strong suit. Make the Democrat go to war with the Democrat.
Yes, we know that the Founders provided members of Congress with the Constitutional right to conduct and perform dramatic scripted scenes of “compassion”, victimhood and disruption at federal detention facilities before cameras and wokified supporters. Just ask any U.S. district court judge. They’ll be happy to tell you – in about 120 pages.
If I didn’t know any better, I would think that you were being cynical!
/s
I don’t think anyone is saying that Congress can’t or shouldn’t perform oversight. Publicity stunts are not legitimate oversight functions.
“Here’s the calendar of surprise inspections scheduled for the coming month.”
Somehow, I suspect I’ve uncovered an upcoming Democrat talking point.
I think Noem need to deny any congressbroad with a track record of stupidity access. Omar, Waters, Occasional Cortex and the like. Trump needs to deny them anything else. He needs to turn them into national laughingstocks, if they aren’t already. He needs to turn their voters into national laughingstocks as only he can.
No one claims the founders provided such a right. All such claims rest on statutes, not the constitution.
If the toddlers of whatever age misbehave, give them the discipline they didn’t get when they needed it.
.
Arrest the SOB’S.
The Constitution clearly permits it.
Any judge who demands release can be ignored, or obtain their own Army to attempt rescue.
Grandstanding is all they want to do.
Seems reasonable to ask for a schedule for visits.
Repub Rep requested seeing J6 prisoners and were never allowed under any circumstances. The Dems set the protocol so they should live with it. Frankly, they should have visitation rights…. After approval people could visit them at Leavenworth.
There is no law entitling congressmen to access prisons. There is a law entitling them to visit DHS facilities where aliens are housed, and it specifically says they are not required to give any notice at all, while congressional staffers have the same right but must give 24 hours’ notice.
What’s changed is that there’s a new law now, that omits that clause. Facilities still relying on the old law for funding are subject to the old law; those that are funded by the new law are not.
When you have retards who should never have been allowed to rub for anything, let alone vote period, the rules must be changed. The entire Constitution and related paraphernalia is a gentleman’;s agreement which they abrogated decades ago,
It’s got nothing to do with the constitution. It’s about statutes that Congress has made, and exactly what each one says.
Schedule for visits to Federal facilities.
Must be scheduled 1 year in advance, and must occur on the 4th day following the third week after a full moon during the Super Blood Moon.
We have to walk this line because the Democrats abuse their privileges. Did the notice also give rules for visits that involve not assaulting agents or inciting riots?
Where was the outrage when no one was allowed to see the J6 prisoners? Of course, Republicans never create a scene or cause trouble like the Dems do.
Which is why Democrats will eventually make America like California, with the left controlling everything.
To my chagrin, Republicans are spineless for the most part.
Why would there be outrage? There was never any law entitling them to see the prisoners. There is a law specifically entitling them to visit any facility DHS operates to house detainees, with no notice.
What’s recently changed is that there’s a new law.
Not having a law that would have entitled them to visit J6 prisoners did not prevent them from requesting to do so and then raising a stink about not being permitted to visit. At a minimum, it would have allowed them to ask, “What are you hiding?” It’s all theater. It’s intended to be theater. But even theater has a purpose. If it didn’t, why do the Dems participate in theater?
It didn’t prevent them from that. But the fact remains that they had no legal right to visit them. Whereas the Dem congressmen did have a legal right to inspect DHS facilities at any time, with no notice whatsoever. Refusing them entry, or delaying them, was against the law. They weren’t entitled to bring anyone in with them, so those people were properly refused entry, and arrested when they forced their way in, but the congressmen themselves were entitled to enter.
Without the opportunity to display their faux compassion and fake gravitas for the cameras, without the ability to disrupt ICE operations, leftist lawmakers will suddenly become uninterested in conditions at these detention centers.
“Your Target’s Reaction is Your Real Action.”
James Lindsay, @Conceptual James on X, provides a clear explanation of the technique being used to create advantage. We have front row seats to the world of unrestricted political warfare environment brought by radicals.
Trump’s Executive Order 14287 lays out the predicate for military intervention when the local state, county and city authorities are unable (in their case fail) to perform their duties.
The show will really begin, if Tump follows up with what he has created into law.
FAFO?
“Trump’s Executive Order 14287”
“what he has created into law.”
Never confuse these two conceps.
Let them in and walk unescorted in the general population. Maybe they’ll get taken hostage.
But only after carefully ensuring that all the cameras have malfunctioned and all the guards are asleep.
Many will remember that during WWII, the Red Cross would give notice to POW camps that they were going to be inspected. In German camps, new bedding, new mattresses, new clothing and better food would suddenly appear. Once the inspectors left, those things were taken away.
Oversight has it’s place. I am not sure that a scheduled oversight visit roots out issues or just sees what the agency wants people to see. (You may remember the in the Obama administration, representatives were denied entrances to VA hospitals and needed to schedule visits because in many case, the facility was so horrible and needed to be “cleaned up” before anyone could see it.)
The real problem is not the oversight. There is not a person here who doesn’t want to make sure the funding is being used appropriately and that people are being treated humanely. That is part of who we are as Americans.
The real problem is these “oversight” visits are political. They are grandstanding. They do not solve anything. They do not acknowledge anything other than the political narrative of one party.
Oversight is good and should be welcomed. Grandstanding is not.
If someone wants so grandstand, go join the circus. Then again, they may already be clowns trying to be in the center ring.
Easy: the law should place the “unscheduled” oversight responsibility into the hands of a bipartisan congressional committee, not individual crazy chicks in the legislature. Just like they do for the national security information that Congress “has the power to oversee.”
Just an oversight visit is insufficient. The democratic lawmakers should be invited to stay a weekend or even a week, That way they would get the full experience and understand how well or how poorly detainees are treated,
They can check in, but thy can’t check out.
They are roaches after all.
Let them cooperate in good faith with advance scheduling OR if they show up then bring them but ….gotta get very thoroughly searched, no camera, no cell phone, no Congressional staff, no press., no local politicians. Just the individual members of Congress.
In a skintight body suit.
(Some Members of Congress will require special accommodation.)
And make sure to stage media photographers at the exit, to commemorate the visit.
You do NOT wanna see that 60 IQ n Waters in a bodysuit.
As a citizen, I want proper oversight in detention facilities, be it for ANTIFA thugs or J6 citizens.
I also want proper oversight of funds spent on daycare centers.
It’s not about what citizens want, it’s about what specific statutes require. That’s why any comparison between DHS facilities and prisons is invalid. The law governing prisons has never allowed congressmen access. The law governing DHS did allow it, and specifically said they did not have to give any notice. This new rule would have been impossible when most of those incidents took place.
What’s changed is that Congress passed a new law.
“It’s not about what citizens want, it’s about what specific statutes require. ”
Steve is demanding representative government.
You’re making excuses as to why what we’ve got isn’t that.
This is why we can’t have nice things.
Sorry, but am a little unclear as to what you are saying.
But now there is a law that allows Congressmen access to prisons.
As Daffy Duck once said…..“Wait a minute….pronoun trouble.”
If you are referring to the relatively new “Federal Prison Oversight Act,” I might agree with you. But I am unsure what new law you are referring to. As it stands now, there is Congressional oversight and inspections of Federal prisons.
If that is what you are talking about, your comment makes sense.
Point of interest: none of this would have helped the J6 defendants, because they were in the DC Jail, not a federal prison.
I am referring to the laws governing DHS. Section 527 of the law funding DHS for the last few years specifically required it to allow congressmen to inspect any facility it uses for housing detainees, with no notice whatsoever, and to allow their staffers in on 24 hours’ notice.
That law only applied to facilities that were funded under it. The latest funding law, though, the so-called “One Big Beautiful Bill Act”, does not have this provision. So any facility whose funding comes from the new law isn’t required to let congressmen in.
Omar is not “Congressional Oversite.” She is a mentally challenged ,corrupt, subversive crook.
Of course, Ilhan never wants to conduct personal oversight over ADX Florence. Let these democrats enter DHS facilities but make it clear DHS is not required to provide them with an escort or security and their staff members must provide advance notice. DHS employees do not work for congress.
Limiting the visits to no more than three people would also be a good idea. More would be disruptive. If they want to bring staff, the staff count toward the limit.