By MICHAEL KUNZELMAN
WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge agreed on Monday to temporarily suspend the latest version of a Trump administration policy that requires members of Congress to provide a week’s notice before they can visit immigration detention facilities.
U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb in Washington ruled that a group of Democratic lawmakers is likely to succeed in showing that the seven-day notice requirement is illegal and exceeds the government’s statutory authority.
The judge said the Republican administration hasn’t cited any “concrete examples of safety issues posed by congressional visits without advanced notice.”
Thirteen House members sued to challenge the Jan. 8 policy issued by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. Cobb had blocked a previous version of the policy in December. She ruled that it’s likely illegal for Immigration and Customs Enforcement to demand a week’s notice from members of Congress seeking to visit and observe conditions in ICE facilities.
“Plaintiffs are undoubtedly frustrated with Defendants’ repeated attempts to impose a notice requirement,” Cobb wrote. “But in taking further action, Defendants are required to abide by the terms of the Court’s order and act consistently with the legal principles announced in this opinion.”
However, Noem secretly reinstated another notice requirement one day after an ICE officer shot and killed U.S. citizen Renee Good in Minneapolis. It was nearly identical to the version that Cobb blocked in December.
Three days after the deadly shooting, three Democratic members of Congress from Minnesota were stopped from visiting an ICE facility near Minneapolis. The Department of Homeland Security didn’t disclose the new version of the policy until after U.S. Reps. Ilhan Omar, Kelly Morrison and Angie Craig initially were turned away from the facility, according to plaintiffs’ attorneys.
A law bars the government from using appropriated general funds to prevent members of Congress from entering DHS facilities for oversight purposes. Cobb found that it’s “highly likely” that President Donald Trump’s administration used restricted funds to promulgate and enforce the new policy.
Cobb was nominated to the bench by President Joe Biden, a Democrat.
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