Judge allows Trump administration to block lawmakers’ access to ICE facilities

The Trump administration won a legal victory on Monday that temporarily allows it to keep elected officials out of immigration detention camps, while it advanced two other court actions in support of its surge into Minnesota.

A federal judge in Washington DC ruled that the homeland security department (DHS) can continue to insist that lawmakers provide a week’s notice of their intention to inspect immigration facilities, even though she blocked an identical policy last month.

Separately, justice department lawyers urged a district court judge in Minneapolis to allow the administration’s immigration enforcement actions in Minnesota to continue, in response to a lawsuit filed by the state seeking to end what it called a “federal invasion”.

And in a related development, the justice department said it was appealing an injunction issued Friday curbing aggressive tactics by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and other federal agencies in dealing with protesters.

Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, backtracked Sunday on her insistence that federal agents had not used chemical substances including pepper spray against crowds protesting ICE actions, and claimed instead they were necessary to “establish law and order”.

The Washington DC ruling on congressional oversight of federal immigration facilities comes after three Democratic Minnesota congress members, Ilhan Omar, Angie Craig and Kelly Morrison, said DHS officials illegally blocked them from performing authorized congressional oversight when they tried to inspect an ICE detention center near Minneapolis earlier this month.

Colorado congressman Joe Neguse and colleagues filed a lawsuit arguing that it violated district court judge Jia Cobb’s December ruling blocking DHS from enforcing a seven-day notice period.

But in four-page ruling Monday, Cobb said the fact that DHS claimed it was now enforcing the seven-day requirement using funding from a different source, namely Trump’s so-called “big beautiful bill”, instead of existing appropriations, meant the policy “facially differs” from the one she blocked.

“If plaintiffs wish to challenge the legality of a new agency action, plaintiffs may seek leave to amend their complaint or file a supplemental pleading,” she wrote, adding that she would consider another temporary restraining order.

Neguse did not respond to Cobb’s ruling, but in an earlier post on social media said that no-notice inspections were essential.

“The law is crystal-clear: the administration can’t block members of Congress from conducting real-time oversight of immigration detention facilities,” he wrote.

Meanwhile, the justice department responded Monday to the lawsuit brought by Minnesota, and the cities of Minneapolis and St Paul, seeking an end to ICE activities, claiming the state was demanding an unprecedented veto over federal law enforcement.

At a press conference last week announcing the action, Keith Ellison, the Minnesota attorney general, said the cities were being terrorized by federal actions, including the shooting death of Renee Good, an unarmed US citizen, by an ICE agent.

“We allege that DHS’s use of excessive and lethal force, their warrantless, racist arrests, their targeting of our courts, our churches, houses of worship and schools are a violation of the Administrative Procedures Act on arbitrary and capricious federal actions,” he said.

Justice department lawyers, however, called the lawsuit “an absurdity”, according to the New York Times. “It would render the supremacy of federal law an afterthought to local preferences,” they said, and an injunction blocking the operation “would constitute an unprecedented act of judicial overreach,” the Times reported.

Katherine Menendez, the Joe Biden-appointed district court judge hearing the case, made no immediate ruling but indicated she might hold another hearing before deciding on the lawsuit’s merits.

Menendez is also the judge who issued the order Friday curtailing ICE’s tactics, including “retaliation” against protesters and “the drawing and pointing of weapons; the use of pepper spray and other non-lethal munitions; actual and threatened arrest and detainment of protesters and observers; and other intimidation tactics”.

DHS told Menendez on Monday it had filed an appeal notice with the eighth district court of appeal, the New York Times reported, noting that the text of the document was not immediately available.