The only laws the Trump Administration respects are the laws it gets to inflict on others. The rule of law, however, doesn’t mean the laws don’t apply to those who make the rules. And yet, here we are, seeing another flagrant refusal to comply with oversight laws just because the DHS and ICE feel they can keep getting away with this.
Last month, ICE’s refusal to allow congressional reps to engage in an unannounced inspection of a New Jersey detention facility resulted in the arrest of Newark Mayor Ras Baraka — something that occurred even though Baraka followed ICE officers’ orders and returned to the public sidewalk outside of the facility’s gates. That then led to federal prosecutors receiving a tongue-lashing from a federal judge for the arrest and refusal to dismiss the obviously bogus charges the feds used to justify their retaliatory arrest of the mayor.
It’s happening again, albeit without the arrests. But it’s still just as unlawful. Congressional reps on both coasts were denied access to ICE detention facilities — something ICE cannot legally do.
Three Democratic members of Congress from California and two from New York said over the weekend that they were barred from entering federal detention centers in their respective states to check on people who were detained in immigration raids or in protests against the raids.
All five members — Representatives Maxine Waters, Jimmy Gomez and Norma Torres of California and Representatives Adriano Espaillat and Nydia Velázquez of New York — said that they should have been allowed to enter the buildings as members of Congress.
The congressional reps are entirely in the right, even if DHS head Kristi Noem and professional liar/DHS PR rep Tricia McLaughlin say otherwise. Inconveniently for both Noem and McLaughlin, ICE’s current acting direction, Todd Lyons, has publicly confirmed congressional members have the right to engage in unannounced inspections of federal facilities.
“We do acknowledge that any member of Congress has the right to show up for an inspection at one of our facilities in their oversight capability,” Lyons said. He also said that while those visits are “unannounced,” members need to show identification and go through screening and can’t bring contraband.
By law, members of Congress are allowed to visit ICE facilities and don’t have to give any notice, although congressional staff members need to give 24 hours’ notice.
That’s what’s being said by ICE, but that’s definitely not how ICE is actually doing things. And ICE’s parent agency, the DHS, is only too happy to oblige ICE’s incorrect claims and unlawful actions by adding more bullshit of its own.
A spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, Tricia McLaughlin, said that the lawmakers had shown up unannounced. ICE officials had told them, she said, that they “would be happy to give them a tour with a little more notice, when it would not disrupt ongoing law enforcement activities and sensitive law enforcement items could be put away.”
Wrong answer, Trish. The law says congressional reps can enter at any time without any prior notice. There’s no provision in the oversight law that gives federal agencies a bit of extra time to tidy up the place and hide anything incriminating. Oversight isn’t really oversight if those being inspected are given advance notice and enough time to sweep stuff under the rugs.
But ICE continues to pretend otherwise and Tricia McLaughlin is always on hand to misrepresent the law and/or claim these completely legal impromptu inspections are nothing more than political stunts. Even if they are “political stunts” (and they are, to a certain extent), the law doesn’t say federal agencies can bar Congress members from entry just because they might they have problems with any perceived motive.
The law is law, but somehow that just never seems to be the case when it comes to this administration. Trump and his cabinet are still picking and choosing which laws they’ll follow and relying on the resulting deluge of lawsuits to continue violating laws while overworked courts try (often in vain) to rein in this administration. Hopefully the tide will turn in the near future, and the system of checks and balances will slowly begin to drain the swamp Trump has created.
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