Republican Rep. Andrew Garbarino of Bayport, who chairs the U.S. House Committee on Homeland Security, is pushing back on the Trump administration’s efforts to limit congressional oversight of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities.
Garbarino, in a statement to Newsday late Monday, said all members of Congress “have a right” to see the results of billions in funding approved for ICE and Customs and Border Patrol.
By law, members of Congress can visit ICE detention centers without giving notice. Many members have inspected conditions inside these jails. But Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem has repeatedly tried to limit Congressional oversight, restarting a policy on Thursday that requires congressmembers to submit requests to visit ICE facilities at least seven days in advance.
Garbarino told Newsday: “If these facilities are running as they should, then there should be no need for a seven day advance notice for a congressional visit.”
Those funds, Garbarino added, were intended to “continue President Trump’s historic success.”
ICE detention sites across Long Island and nationwide have come under increased scrutiny as President Donald Trump has ramped up deportation efforts. Close to 67,000 people were detained by ICE as of last November, nearly 74% of whom did not have a criminal conviction, according to Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Clearinghouse.
On Monday, immigration officials in Bethpage took a New York City Council employee into custody at an immigration check-in appointment, according to the Council Speaker Julie Menin.
Garbarino’s Republican counterpart in Suffolk, Rep. Nick LaLota (R-Amityville), told Newsday on Sunday that Noem’s new policy was “far less onerous” than when Biden administration officials would did let him into a federal jail in Los Angeles to visit a U.S. Navy lieutenant until he threatened to make a public scene.
Rep. Laura Gillen (D-Rockville Centre) did not respond to a request for comment Sunday. Her Democratic counterpart in Nassau, Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-Glen Cove), said impromptu visits keep “everyone on their toes, and promotes lawful behavior.”
“Restricting the role of Congress is a mistake,” Suozzi said in a statement to Newsday on Sunday.
Days before Noem’s new rules, Suozzi visited a Central Islip federal courthouse where more than 100 people were held last year in conditions that one judge described as “abhorrent.” He also visited the Nassau County Correctional Center, where ICE has held more than 2,200 since Trump took office last January, and where a 42-year-old immigrant father died.
Last month, a federal judge determined it was likely illegal to require a seven-day notice from Congress members, temporarily blocking the Trump administration from enforcing the policy.
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