Judge Again Blocks Policy Restricting Lawmakers' Access to ICE Facilities [View all]

Source: New York Times

Feb. 2, 2026, 2:16 p.m. ET


For the second time, a federal judge has blocked the Trump administration from enforcing a policy restricting members of Congress from making unannounced visits to immigration detention facilities, finding a revised version remained inadequate. The decision was the second time in less than two months that Judge Jia M. Cobb, a Biden appointee, ruled that the Trump administration had unlawfully sought to require lawmakers to provide notice seven days before inspecting facilities run by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

She wrote that the policy continued to violate a part of the law that provides annual appropriations to fund the Department of Homeland Security and prohibits those funds from being used to limit congressional oversight. The ruling is temporary; the judge said she will revisit the issue within two weeks. But the decision will restore the ability of Democrats to conduct surprise inspections of facilities in the meantime.

Since the court’s first ruling on the issue in December, the Trump administration asserted that its financing of ICE facilities and operations could now be covered by money from President Trump’s sprawling tax and spending law, passed last summer. The law, known commonly as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, set aside around $45 billion for ICE detention facilities and another $31 billion for hiring, training and legal resources to carry out immigration enforcement.

With the money made available by the president’s domestic policy bill, the administration said it should now be able to legally impose the restriction on congressional oversight. But in her order on Monday, Judge Cobb wrote that the government had failed to show convincingly that it was no longer using any funds authorized by Congress in the appropriations law for the facilities.

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/02/us/politics/congress-ice-facilities-inspections.html