From left, Sen. Angela Alsobrooks, Reps. Sarah Elfreth, Johnny Olszewski and Kweisi Mfume, Sen. Chris Van Hollen and Rep. Glenn Ivey wait outside ICE offices in Baltimore. (Photo courtesy Sen. Chris Van Hollen's office)
Six members of Maryland’s congressional delegation were turned away Monday when they showed up to inspect a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in Baltimore where they said people are being temporarily held for deportation or awaiting court hearings.
Democratic Sens. Angela Alsobrooks and Chris Van Hollen and Reps. Johnny Olszewski Jr. (D-2nd), Sarah Elfreth (D-3rd), Glenn Ivey (D-4th) and Kweisi Mfume (D-7th) entered the George H. Fallon Federal Building, where the ICE detention facility is located.
In a joint statement, the lawmakers said the visit was part of teheri oversight responsibility as members of Congress, and that they were “exercising our legal authority … to inspect the Baltimore federal holding facility, and, if necessary, speak directly with detainees.”
But they were denied entry by an ICE official who told the lawmakers that it was an office, not a detention facility, and that they were not authorized to to enter, even though they wrote the head of ICE and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem last Monday to alert them to the visit.
Despite the claim that it’s just an office, Alsobrooks said previous visits by congressional staffers, and a court brief filed by Maryland Attorney General, indicate that immigrants are being held for several days at a time in “hold rooms” at the facility. Those rooms are designed to hold detainees for up to 12 hours while awaiting a court appearance, but are not meant for longer stays, lawmakers said.
“They are breaking the law in there,” Alsobrooks said. She said the official they encountered refused to say who gave the order to bar lawmawkers from the building.
A representative from ICE didn’t respond to requests for comment Monday. But Rep. Andy Harris (R-1st), the only Republican in the state’s congressional delegation, derided what he called the “‘sit-in’ stunts for cameras,” after several of the lawmakers saw down in front of the ICE office doors.
“Spare us the show. We stand with ICE and their mission to keep Maryland safe,” Harris said in a social media post.
Alsobrooks did not respond to Harris’ post directly, instead chiding him for not using his influence with the White House to secure federal disaster relie for Western Maryland flood victims, which was rejected last week by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
“We share a responsibility to the people of Maryland,” she said. “It would be great to be able to get his assistance in getting the disaster relief that people need.”
The Baltimore office recently held Eastern Shore pastor Daniel Fuentes Espinal, an undocumented immigrant from Honduras with no criminal record, who was arrested last week and has since been transferred to the Winn Correctional Center outside New Orleans. Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Beltsville resident arrested and erroneously deported to El Salvador before being brought back to in Tennessee, where is currently being held, also started his journey in the Baltimore office in March.
Lawmakers said Monday’s visit was a follow-up to a March visit by Alsobrooks and Van Hollen staffers that found overcrowding of up to 54 people in holding rooms, no infirmary or medical staff on-site, with ICE staff “making sandwiches themselves or buying McDonald’s” to feed detainees.
Attorney General Anthony Brown (D) filed an amicus brief in June outlining the conditions in Baltimore and limited “access to counsel” and “basic hygiene.”
Alsobrooks noted that some of the ICE agents were “walking around that building with masks on. The inhumanity and cruelty is an ongoing theme of the people who are treated inside that building.”
“They’re walking around that building with masks on,” she said. “The inhumanity and cruelty is an ongoing theme of the people who are treated inside that building.”
The lawmakers said that federal law gives members of Congress the “explicit right to conduct unannounced oversight visits to DHS [Department of Homeland Security] detention facilities. No prior notice is required, and no agency has the authority to obstruct that legal responsibility.”
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Ivey, who traveled in El Salvador in May in an unsuccessful attempt to visit Abrego Garcia, said he wasn’t shocked when was refused a visit there, because officials in that country “don’t have the longest history of democracy there and arguably, don’t have it right now.”
“But this is unbelievable, that they [ICE officials] would turn us away from this building here in the United States … to see our constituents,” Ivey said Monday in a news conference in front of the building. “Not only that, the power of the purse under the Constitution gives us the authority and the obligation to conduct oversight, to make sure money’s being spent wisely.”
Crisaly De Los Santos, director of CASA’s Baltimore and Central Maryland office, called the ICE decision to prevent members fo Congress from touring the building “outrageous.”
“Although federal lawmakers are legally afforded jurisdictional oversight of all ICE facilities, Baltimore ICE unlawfully denied access underscoring that the Trump regime is escalating its denial of restraints and the proper oversight role of the legislative branch,” De Los Santos said. “Imagine, if members of Congress can be treated so poorly by ICE, what is happening in our streets to you and me?”
– Maryland Matters reporter Sam Gauntt contributed to this report.
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