The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is placing new limitations on lawmakers seeking to visit immigrant detention facilities, after several visits from Democrats have resulted in confrontations, skirmishes and arrests.
As part of their oversight duties, members are legally allowed to make unannounced visits to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities.
The new guidelines would require lawmakers give 72 hours notice before any visits, while requiring their staff to give 24 hours notice. In addition, lawmakers will not be able to visit ICE field offices.
The guidelines also require 48 hours notice for meeting with specific detainees, and limit the size of groups seeking to tour facilities.
Democrats blasted the new guidelines.
"[DHS Secretary] Kristi Noem's new policy to block congressional oversight of ICE facilities is not only unprecedented, it is an affront to the Constitution and Federal law," Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) said in a statement.
Earlier this month, prosecutors brought charges against Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-N.J.), accusing her of assaulting law enforcement during a scrum outside of a New Jersey detention facility. Charges against Newark Mayor Ras Baraka (D) were dropped.
Separately, Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) was handcuffed on the ground after disrupting Noem's press conference on anti-ICE protests in Los Angeles. This week, Democrat Brad Lander, who is running for mayor of New York City, was arrested and briefly detained for impeding ICE operations at an immigration court.
MORE IMMIGRATION NEWS…
• White House border czar Tom Homan said Thursday that ICE is focusing on immigration raids in sanctuary cities run by Democrats.
"That's where the problem is," Homan said. "They knowingly release public safety threats, illegal aliens to the community every day. So that's why we're sending more resources to sanctuary cities."
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt echoed those remarks.
"Illegal aliens who are hiding in America's so-called sanctuary cities will be targeted for removal," she said. "Radical Democrats will no longer be allowed to shelter illegals who threaten public safety as part of their cynical effort to expand political power, drain the American taxpayer and artificially lower wages and steal American jobs."
• The State Department will restart interviews and process foreign student visas, but it now will ask applicants to make their social media public for vetting, with potential denial if they refuse.
The State Department says it's looking for those who "pose a threat to U.S. national security."
The Hill's Lexi Lonas writes:
"The announcement comes as a sigh of relief to students who have been accepted to U.S. schools and need to pay their tuition and register for housing. But it also escalates the battle begun under President Trump, with foreign students arrested, visas pulled and Harvard University told it could no longer admit international students."
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