A federal judge refused to block President Donald Trump’s administration from enforcing a new policy requiring members of Congress to give a week’s notice before visiting immigration detention facilities.
U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb in Washington, D.C., decided Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., said that she and other Minnesota lawmakers were kicked out of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility in Minneapolis on Saturday, January 10. After being told about the Trump administration’s rule about visits from lawmakers, they were told to leave the facility.
Attorneys for several Democratic members of Congress asked Cobb to step in, but the judge said on Monday that they used the wrong “procedural vehicle” to do so. The judge also said that the January 8 policy is a new action by the Department of Homeland Security that is not covered by her previous order in favor of the plaintiffs.
“The Court emphasizes that it denies Plaintiffs’ motion only because it is not the proper avenue to challenge Defendants’ January 8, 2026, memorandum and the policy stated therein, rather than based on any kind of finding that the policy is lawful,” Cobb wrote.
Cobb put a stop to an administration oversight visit policy last month. On December 17, she said that ICE probably can’t ask members of Congress to give them a week’s notice before they visit and see how things are at ICE facilities.
The Associated Press says that U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem quietly signed a new memo the day after Renee Nicole Good died in Minneapolis. This memo reinstated a seven-day notice requirement.
Lawyers for the plaintiffs from the Democracy Forward legal advocacy group said that DHS didn’t tell them about the new policy until after Reps. Omar, Kelly Morrison, and Angie Craig were denied entry to an ICE facility located in the Minneapolis federal building.
Melissa Schwartz, a spokesperson for Democracy Forward, said they were looking over the judge’s most recent order.
“We will continue to use every legal tool available to stop the administration’s efforts to hide from congressional oversight,” she said in a statement to the AP.
Earlier this month, House Democrats asked the judge to stop Noem’s new rule that requires advance notice for congressional visits to ICE detention centers. They stated in a court filing that the rule is politically motivated and violates federal spending law, as well as a previous court stay.
Last year, Democrats sued to stop the seven-day notice requirement. They said that the rules for ICE detention centers break Section 527, a federal spending law that says DHS can’t use money that has been set aside for other purposes to keep Congress from visiting these facilities.
Some Democratic lawmakers are resisting support for Department of Homeland Security (DHS) funding legislation unless it includes new restrictions on Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), raising the possibility of a federal funding standoff ahead of the Jan. 30 deadline to avert a partial government shutdown.
Left-wingers and other Democrats in both the House and Senate have pressed for oversight measures that would limit how ICE operates, including requirements for agents to obtain warrants before making arrests, wear identification in the field and restrict use of firearms in civilian contexts.
Critics argue these changes are necessary to rein in what they describe as unchecked enforcement practices.
The move comes following the Jan. 8 ICE shooting of Minneapolis resident Renee Good.
She was killed after appearing to strike an agent with her vehicle while trying to flee the scene after blocking an ICE vehicle in a street and following agents throughout the day as they attempted enforcement actions.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) has said Democratic support for additional DHS funding hinges on such reforms, and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) has drawn a “red line” against increased ICE funding without changes to agency operations.