Judge declines to block DHS policy limiting lawmakers’ ICE facility visits

Judge cites procedural issue, says policy is a new agency action

U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb in Washington refused on Monday to temporarily block the Trump administration from enforcing a policy that requires members of Congress to give a week’s notice before visiting Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facilities.

Cobb said the Department of Homeland Security did not violate an earlier court order when it reimposed the seven-day notice requirement for congressional oversight visits. She also said she was not deciding whether the Jan. 8 policy is lawful.

In her ruling, Cobb emphasized that the plaintiffs’ attorneys representing several Democratic members of Congress used the wrong “procedural vehicle” to challenge the Jan. 8 change. She concluded the Jan. 8 policy constitutes a new agency action that is not subject to her prior order in the plaintiffs’ favor. She also ruled that the new policy is similar but different than the one announced in June 2025.

“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.

Background: lawmakers blocked after earlier ICE policy halt

The renewed dispute surfaced after three Democratic members of Congress from Minnesota were blocked from visiting an ICE facility near Minneapolis earlier this month. The blocked visits came three days after an ICE officer shot and killed U.S. citizen Renee Good in Minneapolis.

Cobb had temporarily blocked a prior oversight-visit policy in a Dec. 17 ruling. In that decision, she said it is likely illegal for ICE to demand a week’s notice from members of Congress seeking to visit and observe conditions in ICE facilities.

A day after Good’s death, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem signed a new memorandum reinstating another seven-day notice requirement. Plaintiffs’ lawyers said DHS did not disclose the latest policy until after U.S. Reps. Ilhan Omar, Kelly Morrison and Angie Craig were turned away from an ICE facility in the Minneapolis federal building.

Plaintiffs seek access while funding negotiations near deadline

After Monday’s decision, Democracy Forward spokeswoman Melissa Schwartz said her group was reviewing Cobb’s latest order.

“We will continue to use every legal tool available to stop the administration’s efforts to hide from congressional oversight,” Schwartz said in a statement.

A separate lawsuit by twelve other Democratic members of Congress is pending in Washington after they were denied entry to detention facilities. That suit accuses the Republican President Donald Trump’s administration of obstructing congressional oversight of the centers during a nationwide surge in immigration enforcement operations.

Plaintiffs argued that a law bars DHS from using appropriated general funds to prevent members of Congress from entering DHS facilities for oversight purposes. Plaintiffs’ attorneys said the administration has not shown that none of those funds are being used to implement the latest notice policy, and attorney Christine Coogle told the court during a hearing Wednesday that, “Appropriations are not a game. They are a law.”

Justice Department attorney Amber Richer said during the proceedings that the Jan. 8 policy is distinct from the policies Cobb suspended last month, characterizing the matter as “really a challenge to a new policy.”

Plaintiffs’ lawyers said the dispute is urgent because lawmakers are negotiating funding for DHS and ICE for the next fiscal year, with annual appropriations due to expire Jan. 30. In their filings, they said Congress must be able to conduct oversight at ICE detention facilities, without notice, to obtain urgent and essential information for ongoing funding negotiations.

Government attorneys previously argued that it was speculative for legislators to worry that conditions inside ICE facilities would change over a week. Cobb rejected that position in the prior month, writing that the changing conditions likely make it impossible for a member of Congress to reconstruct conditions at a facility on the day they first sought entry.

Cobb was nominated to the bench by Democratic President Joe Biden.