Judge Blocks Noem’s Latest Attempt to Stop Democrats From Inspecting ICE Jails

A federal judge issued an emergency order on February 2 temporarily blocking Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s latest effort to prevent Democratic lawmakers from making unannounced inspections of federal immigration jails, where at least 38 people have died since Donald Trump returned to the White House.

“Unlawful secrecy has fueled the deadliest era in Department of Homeland Security detention history,” said Andrew Fels, a staff attorney at the migrant rights group Al Otro Lado, in an email to Truthout. “Today’s ruling reaffirms the importance of congressional oversight, particularly when lives, safety, and basic human dignity are at risk.”

The order grants emergency relief to 13 Democratic members of Congress who were blocked by Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials from conducting unannounced oversight inspections of immigration jails. The court previously blocked an order requiring lawmakers to provide prior notice before visiting immigration jails in December. But Noem quietly issued a nearly-identical memo reinstating the policy dated January 8, one day after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent killed Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Protests erupted around the country after ICE agent Jonathan Ross shot Good three times while she was in her car. In the hours after her death, immigration officers in Minnesota assaulted mourning residents and made multiple arrests. As protests continued into the next day, Rep. Ilhan Omar and other Minnesota Democrats arrived to meet with constituents held at the Whipple Federal Building in Minneapolis, where ICE and Border Patrol have continued to detain both immigrants and protesters arrested during the Trump administration’s so-called “immigration enforcement” operation in Minnesota.

Despite the previous ruling against Noem’s earlier policy requiring members of Congress to provide prior notice before visiting immigration jails, Omar and her fellow lawmakers were turned away from the Whipple Federal Building, which the Trump administration has transformed into makeshift jail and headquarters for its crackdown on Minnesota. The lawmakers were told a new policy reportedly instituted by Noem required members of Congress to provide notice a week in advance, essentially making unannounced oversight inspections impossible.

“What happened today is a blatant attempt to obstruct members of Congress from doing their oversight duties,” Omar told reporters at the time.

Democrats immediately asked the federal judge for a restraining order against the policy after Omar and her colleagues were blocked from entering the building. In the February 2 decision granting that order, U.S. District Judge Jia M. Cobb wrote that the Democrat plaintiffs are likely to succeed in their lawsuit against the Trump administration in part because the new policy requiring advanced notice is nearly identical to the policy struck down in December.

“If anything, the strength of that finding has become greater over the intervening weeks, given that ICE’s enforcement and detention practices have become the focus of intense national and congressional interest,” Cobb wrote.

Skye Perryman, president and CEO of the watchdog group Democracy Forward, said DHS is attempting to keep the cruelty of ICE jails out of public view, but voters can “see with their own eyes” that the Trump administration’s mass deportation scheme is “morally bankrupt and unlawful.”

“Today’s decision restores Congress’s ability to expose dangerous detention conditions, protect people — including U.S. citizens — who are in government custody, and enforce the law when the administration refuses to do so,” Perryman said in a statement on Monday.

“Today’s decision restores Congress’s ability to expose dangerous detention conditions, protect people — including U.S. citizens — who are in government custody, and enforce the law when the administration refuses to do so.”

Federal law requires DHS to allow congressional oversight of immigration detention facilities, but lawmakers across the country have taken the Trump administration to court after being blocked from making unannounced visits. Those visits often come in response to reports of premature death, inhumane conditions, physical coercion, and other alleged abuses from people inside. ICE detained about 40,000 people on any given day before Trump returned to office, but there were a record 73,000 people incarcerated in the nation’s rapidly expanding immigration detention system as of mid-January.

The Trump administration has systemically removed legal protections for refugees and asylum seekers while indiscriminately arresting and incarcerating people for being unable to prove their citizenship on the spot. Being undocumented is a civil violation, and immigration judges typically release people on bond unless they have outstanding criminal charges or pose a public safety threat, but the administration has made detention mandatory for anyone facing deportation orders. As a result, the number of children held in ICE custody has grown sixfold since Trump took office.

As Truthout has reported, 2025 was the deadliest year inside immigration jails ever recorded outside of the COVID-19 pandemic as populations skyrocketed. Democrats and human rights groups have warned federal officials about reports of inedible food, medical neglect, solitary confinement, and physical abuse at multiple ICE jails. Families are pursuing wrongful death claims after at least six deaths in custody in 2026 alone.

On January 27, Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff announced that a year-long investigation by his office had uncovered 1,000 credible reports of human rights abuses in ICE detention. Congress has struggled to hold ICE jails accountable for abusive conditions for years, with research showing that solitary confinement and other inhumane practices cause serious harm and even death.

In May 2025, federal officers arrested Newark Mayor Ras Baraka and Rep. LaMonica McIver when a scuffle erupted outside an ICE prison in New Jersey where Democratic politicians were attempting to make an oversight visit. McIver was charged with assaulting federal officers and says the prosecution is purely political. A federal judge has refused to dismiss the charges while demanding internal communications and additional evidence from the administration.

The conditions in ICE jails are getting renewed attention as Trump’s mass deportation agenda becomes more unpopular than ever. Residents of cities such as Minneapolis, Chicago, Los Angeles, New Orleans, and beyond have organized in response to Trump’s immigration policing operations. Legal observers have been dispatched to record roving immigration patrols conducting often violent arrests, in what has blossomed into a nationwide resistance movement.

A review of available data by The Trace found 20 instances in which federal immigration agents shot people since Trump’s deportation campaign began last year. At least five people died, including Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, and another nine were injured. In at least 36 instances, immigration agents “held bystanders, protesters, or other people at gunpoint under questionable circumstances.”

In a statement on February 2, Chioma Chukwu, executive director of the watchdog group American Oversight, said the ruling shows that “the Trump administration cannot evade accountability by walling off its inhumane and deadly detention practices from congressional oversight.”

“At a time when the public has been confronted with violent images of ICE officers attacking people on the street, and reports of abuse, neglect, and deaths in ICE custody, transparency is more important than ever,” Chukwu said.