Ilhan Omar kicked out of ICE facility after DHS requires week’s advance notice
Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., says she and other Minnesota lawmakers were kicked out of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility in Minneapolis on Saturday.
Omar visited ICE’s Whipple Building alongside fellow Minnesota Democrat Rep. Angie Craig, saying they were fulfilling their congressional oversight role. They were asked to leave the facility after being informed about a new Trump administration rule governing lawmaker visits.
“We were initially invited in to do our Congressional oversight and to exercise our Article I duties,” Omar told reporters after the incident. “When we made it in, it was with the authorization of someone who’s been here for a really long time, who understood that we had a Congressional duty to enter the building and see the facility.”
“Shortly after we were let in, two officials came in and said they received a message that we were no longer allowed to be in the building and that they were rescinding our invitation and denying any further access to the building,” she continued.
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President Donald Trump‘s administration imposed a new rule on Saturday requiring lawmakers to give at least one week’s notice before entering an ICE facility.
The move is the administration’s second attempt at such an order. A federal judge previously struck down a similar requirement from Homeland Security Sec. Kristi Noem, finding that federal spending laws require that members of Congress receive unrestricted access to recipient facilities.
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Omar said her group was able to briefly question officials inside the facility regarding hygiene for detainees and other topics. She described the answers she received as “insane,” and argued officials were downplaying how long detainees remain at the facility.
Federal officials say the new order complies with federal law because the funding for the facility is sourced from the Big Beautiful Bill rather than congressional appropriations.
DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin elaborated on Omar’s removal in a statement to reporters, arguing that the lawmakers entered the facility “with the explicit goal of ‘hunting down’ ICE officers who they believed may have been staying there.”
“For the safety of detainees and staff, and in compliance with the agency’s mandate, the Members of Congress were notified that their visit was improper and out of compliance with existing court orders and policies which mandate that members of Congress must notify ICE at least seven days in advance of Congressional visits,” she said.
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