Crow: Members of Congress Have Legal Right to Enter Detention Facilities and Conduct Oversight

WASHINGTON — Congressman Jason Crow (D-CO-06) is demanding that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) issued a directive to all agents reminding them that under current law, Members of Congress have a legal right to show up to conduct oversight of federal detention facilities, and that any threats against Members of Congress who do so are unlawful.

In a letter sent today to DHS Secretary Kristi Noem and Acting ICE Director Patrick J. Lyons, Congressman Crow, along with Representatives Maxwell Frost (D-FL-10) and Veronica Escobar (D-TX-16), condemned the May 9 incident at Delaney Hall Detention Facility in Newark, New Jersey, where the Trump administration has claimed that Reps. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-NJ-12), Rob Menendez (D-NJ-08), and LaMonica McIver (D-NJ-10), who were conducting a site visit of the detention center, could also be arrested citing an alleged “body slam” of an officer—a charge that has not been substantiated by any witness or video evidence.

This letter builds on Congressman Crow’s work to promote accountability and transparency in government. Congressman Crow previously introduced the Public Oversight of Detention Centers (POD) Act, bipartisan legislation regarding oversight and access to federal detention facilities. This legislation was inspired by Congressman Crow’s own experience of being denied entry to the Aurora Contract Detention Facility, following reports of multiple disease outbreaks in the facility. Ultimately, Crow was denied entry for 24 days, and since then, he has led the fight for greater transparency of immigration detention facilities.

A PDF of the letter can be found here, with full text appearing below:

We are alarmed and forcefully condemn the events that took place on May 9, 2025, at the Delaney Hall Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention facility in Newark, New Jersey, and urge you to issue clarifying direction to Department of Homeland Security personnel about the explicit legal right that a Member of Congress has to access a detention center. 

During a site visit by three Members of Congress – Representatives Bonnie Watson Coleman, Rob Menendez, and LaMonica McIver – Newark Mayor Ras Baraka waited outside in a fenced-in parking lot as protestors gathered on the other side of the fence. He was told to leave the fenced-in part of the parking lot and, despite complying with the request, was arrested by ICE agents. Subsequently, a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spokesperson indicated that arrests of the attending Members of Congress are, “on the table,” alleging that one of them “body-slammed” an ICE officer – a claim uncorroborated by witnesses or available video evidence.

Members of Congress possess explicit statutory authority to conduct unannounced oversight visits to facilities operated by or for the Department of Homeland Security. This was outlined in the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2020 (Public Law 116-93), Division D – Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, 2020, Sec. 532 and re-affirmed in each year since, including Section 527(a) of the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, 2024 (Public Law 118–47), which stipulates:

None of the funds appropriated or otherwise made available to the Department of Homeland Security by this Act may be used to prevent...a Member of Congress...from entering, for the purpose of conducting oversight, any facility operated by or for the Department of Homeland 

Security used to detain or otherwise house aliens... [nor] to make any temporary modification at any such facility that in any way alters what is observed by a visiting Member of Congress... compared to what would be observed in the absence of such modification.

Furthermore, subsection (b) clarifies that nothing in this section requires a Member of Congress to provide prior notice of intent to enter such a facility for oversight purposes. The Department itself has affirmed the oversight duties of Members of Congress in guidance posted by ICE dated to February 2025. Arresting Members of Congress for performing their lawful oversight duties cannot be “on the table” because that action would be explicitly unlawful.

We anticipate your prompt confirmation that clarifying direction has been given by May 17, 2025.

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