Rep. Mike Levin (D-Calif.) says an internal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) policy aims to limit congressional oversight and members’ ability to meet with detainees.
The congressman, who represents coastal North County San Diego and parts of southern Orange County, sent a new letter to ICE Acting Director David Venturella on Thursday clarifying his concerns and highlighting “significant mistruths” in Venturella’s defense of the new policy.
“... the new policy will limit the ability for members of Congress to conduct unannounced oversight visits and creates expanded barriers for productive oversight,” Levin wrote in the letter first obtained by KPBS.
Under the ICE policy memo, “Restoring Order and Integrity to Congressional Visits to Detention Facilities,” a member of Congress wishing to meet with detainees must provide two business days of advance notice and proof of a detainee’s consent to the meeting.
Rep. Levin said the 48-hour advance notice requirement negates the point of unannounced oversight visits. If members of Congress are required to provide notice of their intent to speak with a detainee, they are providing notice of the visit itself.
“We have heard in the past that when ICE knows we’re coming, or when Core Civic, who runs [The Otay Mesa detention center], knows we’re coming, that they may try to clean things up,” Rep. Levin told KPBS.
Rep. Levin and 77 other U.S. House representatives sent Venturella a letter on June 11 outlining their concerns with the internal policy.
In that letter, they raised three specific concerns: That detainees would not have access to the required forms, or the ability to submit them in a timely manner; that the 48-hour requirement to meet with detainees contradicts a court ruling confirming members’ ability to conduct unannounced oversight; and that the new policy limits members’ ability to speak broadly with detainees.
“The need for historic levels of access to facilities is a direct product of historic levels of reports regarding the mistreatment of detainees, deaths in custody, inadequate conditions within facilities, and limited or inconsistent resources for detainees,” the members of Congress wrote in their June 11 letter.
Acting Director Venturella responded in a June 29 letter defending the internal policy and rejecting the claims made in the initial letter.
“While ICE is certainly effectuating historic numbers of arrest and removals of illegal aliens from the United States…the agency continues to maintain a broad range of policies, standards, and oversight mechanisms to prevent mistreatment of detainees and detainee deaths, address inadequate facility conditions, and ensure consistent access to resources,” Venturella’s June 29 letter said.
Venturella’s letter said the new policy has “no impact on the ability of members of Congress to conduct unannounced oversight visits” and that the 48-hour requirement has been in place since 2021, under the Biden administration.
But Levin said that’s not true, and that he has spoken with detainees who signed up the day of his previous unannounced visits to speak with him. “I've spoken with people one on one many times, but in every instance, members of Congress were given the opportunity to speak off the cuff without any pre-planning, with detainees who want to speak with us,” Levin told KPBS.
Acting Director Venturella said in his response letter that the “abuse” of sign-up sheets during unannounced visits was an unnecessary burden for ICE. “ICE has been forced to adjudicate requests by hundreds of detainees to meet with members or staff during a single visit,” Venturella said. “This is abjectly outside the scope of any law enforcement function and an improper use of taxpayer dollars.”
But Levin said detainees may be unable to access the paperwork itself that’s required to provide consent – something he said he saw firsthand when he visited a detention facility.
“They talked about the availability of forms for detainees to be able to contact their members of Congress, when in fact, I know from my own business that those forms were not available, that we had to push, that the law librarian didn't know about them,” Levin said. “We had to push for those forms [to be available].”
This inconsistent access to legal guidance and information, or the forms necessary to request meetings, is just another reason unannounced oversight visits, and the ability to speak to detainees during these visits, are so important, Levin said.
“We have been able to help a number of detainees over the last number of years to figure out how to get through the process, and, in many cases, folks who were wrongly detained were able to return to their families, return to their children,” Levin said. “And I take great pride in the work we do for all of our constituents, people who are here who are contributing positively, who are working, paying taxes, who are, you know, aspiring to be positive and productive members of our society.”
Acting Director Venturella said in his June 29 response letter that the policy “...is consistent with all applicable laws and court orders [and] better balances operational requirements to maintain safety, security, and order of our facilities with supporting legitimate congressional oversight efforts.”
U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement and the San Diego field office did not respond to a request for comment.
Rep. Levin said this new policy is another part of the mass deportation agenda run by White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller. “In San Diego, one in every six in the service sector is an undocumented immigrant,” Levin said. “So I've asked the people at ICE, what are you going to do? Go to every restaurant, hospital, go to every farm, every business in town, and start rounding people up? And the reality is, if Stephen Miller had his way, that's exactly what would happen.”
