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AZ Congresswoman promises to keep oversight pressure on ICE [1]

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Date: 2025-07-24

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials continue to rebuff oversight of detention centers, rejecting an Arizona congresswoman’s request to meet with migrants held in the Eloy facility just hours after approving it, without explanation.

Over the weekend, U.S. Rep. Yassamin Ansari planned to meet with Katherine, an asylum seeker from Iran who is currently being held in an ICE detention facility in Eloy, Arizona to discuss the facility’s conditions. On the morning of July 18, Ansari’s staff received an email confirming the visit, but hours later that approval was rescinded and follow-up questions about why or how to remedy the situation were ignored.

During a Thursday afternoon news conference, Ansari criticized the event as yet another example of the Trump administration attempting to avoid accountability.

“This is not how oversight is supposed to work but sadly this is how things operate under the Trump administration and how they want it to work — even after they imposed new, arbitrary guidelines aimed at making it more difficult for members of Congress to do our oversight work,” she said.

Federal law allows members of Congress to conduct oversight visits at facilities that are “operated by or for the Department of Homeland Security used to detain or otherwise house aliens” without prior notification. As the Trump administration has escalated its immigration enforcement activities and demanded 3,000 daily arrests in its bid to oversee the largest mass deportation campaign in history, Democrats have sought to use that federal power to inspect the conditions of ICE facilities in their states. Since October 2024, 12 people have died in ICE custody and advocates fear the spike in arrests and the administration’s aggressive anti-immigrant approach will only increase that number.

But in June, following multiple foiled attempts by Democrats to carry out their statutorily authorized oversight duties, DHS issued new guidance requiring lawmakers to provide 72 hours’ notice before visiting a detention facility. Ansari’s office reached out to officials in Eloy a week before her intended visit. ICE did not respond to a request for comment on why Ansari’s request to speak with Katherine was so abruptly denied, after being initially “cleared”, according to an email from an assistant field office director for ICE provided to the Arizona Mirror.

Ansari had hoped to meet with three migrants to discuss conditions at the Eloy facility after her office received a “surge” in complaints. The families of the three had reached out to Ansari’s office or to other local politicians with concerns about inadequate medical care. Katherine has a severe kidney infection, and during a previous tour of the facility had told Ansari that the air conditioning was often left off, even during intense heat, and when detainees complained it was raised to unbearably cold levels. Arbella, who was also on the list Ansari had asked to meet but who was not cleared because of unspecified paperwork issues, suffers from chronic Leukemia and her friend told Ansari that Arbella has lost 55 lbs during her five-month-long detainment and hasn’t been provided sufficient pain medication to deal with her debilitating pain. Ansari was also denied the ability to speak with Rafael, whose family said has been coughing up blood but hasn’t received medical care, because he had previously been transferred to the ICE facility in nearby Florence. Rafael has signed a voluntary deportation order in his desperation to access medical care, but remains detained.

Ansari referred to the trio as her constituents and criticized the decision to prevent her from meeting with them, saying that it sets a “dangerous precedent”. The Democrat represents congressional district 3, which spans Phoenix, Guadualupe and Glendale, and has a population that is 51% Hispanic. Since her election, Ansari, who is the daughter of Iranian immigrants, has been an outspoken critic of Trump’s hostile deportation policies. On Thursday, she said blocking her from meeting with people detained in Eloy undermines the public’s right to know what happens in ICE detention centers.

“Arizonans deserve to know where their taxpayer money is going,” she said. “Especially after Republicans in Congress, through the reconciliation bill, after cutting healthcare, after cutting food assistance, cutting Pell Grant programs — ICE and the Department of Homeland Security are getting an unprecedented boost in funding to the tune of $170 billion for immigration enforcement.”

As much as $75 billion of that funding is destined for ICE alone, and is expected to pay for 10,000 new agents. But while that makes ICE the highest funded law enforcement agency in the country, the oversight mechanisms meant to keep it in check haven’t been similarly boosted. In fact, the Trump administration has gutted its existing oversight agencies in the past several months. Court filings in a lawsuit against the Trump administration revealed that three watchdog organizations at DHS had been shut down. In March, suspension notices were sent to employees at the Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, which receives civil rights complaints and advances equality and fairness within the department; the Citizenship and Immigration Services Ombudsman, which helps people resolve issues with country’s citizenship and immigration system processes; and the Office of the Immigration Detention Ombudsman, which examines immigration detention to promote humane conditions.

Democrats in Congress have introduced legislation that attempts to address public concerns with some of ICE’s operations, including proposals that would ban agents from wearing masks while making arrests and penalize agents who detain and place U.S. citizens in immigration proceedings, but with a Republican majority in both chambers, they are unlikely to move forward. Ansari said that while Democrats agree that the oversight agencies that were eliminated should be restored, there are no concrete plans in place to introduce legislation to do so. And, she added, it’s unlikely that it would be considered, either.

For now, Ansari said, the focus for her and other Democrats is on visiting ICE facilities and continuing to push for access to them. She said she will keep trying to meet with migrants being detained in Eloy and continue to demand a response to a letter about conditions at the facility she sent DHS in June that has gone unanswered.

“If the Trump administration is not responding to members of Congress and denying us from meeting with our constituents I can only imagine — and I think Arizonans can only imagine what they are doing … behind closed doors and how they are treating everyday people,” she said.

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[1] Url: https://azmirror.com/2025/07/24/az-congresswoman-promises-to-keep-oversight-pressure-on-ice/

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