Moulton fires back as DHS renews effort to block unannounced congressional visits to ICE facilities

The Department of Homeland Security has renewed its effort to stop members of Congress from inspecting Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities unannounced, despite a judge's order that the unplanned visits should proceed.

Massachusetts Congressman Seth Moulton, who has visited the ICE field office in Burlington on two different occasions to investigate reports of overcrowding and poor conditions for detainees, decried the rekindled restriction.

“That's why it's so important that Congress be able to come to these facilities unannounced: so they can't just put on a show for the congressional visit, but we can actually see what the people being detained by ICE officials are experiencing,” Moulton said in an interview Tuesday.

Moulton said the visits make a difference in how detainees are housed and fed, and he plans to continue visiting Burlington and other ICE facilities.

The Department of Homeland Security has reinstated the notice rule in the wake of unrest following after an ICE agent shot and killed Renee Macklin Good in Minneapolis.

The advance notice requirement was first introduced last June, but in December, a federal judge in D.C. struck it down. In a memo dated Jan. 8, DHS chief Kristi Noem said she was reinstating the policy under a different legal framework, citing the need to ensure adequate protection for Congress members, and simultaneously accusing them of using oversight activities for "circus-like publicity stunts."

A group of congressional Democrats is asking the D.C. judge to rule against the policy. Moulton is not listed as a plaintiff in a congressional Hispanic Caucus press release on the suit.

Moulton is among Massachusetts lawmakers pushing for legislation to curb qualified immunity for ICE agents, a legal doctrine that limits the public’s ability to sue government workers over civil rights violations.

"We've seen these videos across the country of ICE officials doing heinous things," Moulton said, "while local law enforcement stands by with their hands tied because local law enforcement knows that they will be sued for violating American civil rights."

In December, Moulton introduced the NOEM Act (National Oversight and
Enforcement of Misconduct Act) to add federal immigration authorities to the government entities that can be sued for civil rights violations.

U.S. Sen. Ed Markey and U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley introduced a similar bill this week.  Their bill seeks to limit qualified immunity for all federal agents. It mirrors an initiative Markey sponsored in 2020, following the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police. The ICE killing of Macklin Good happened just blocks away from where Floyd died.

“When masked ICE agents are allowed to kill and harm people with impunity, we have crossed a dangerous threshold in our nation,” Markey said in a statement Tuesday. “All too often, the flawed and judge-made doctrine of qualified immunity shields law enforcement officers from liability.”

Moulton is challenging Markey for his Senate seat. Pressley has said she's ruled out a run for the seat.

The two bills are unlikely to advance with a Republican majority in both houses of Congress.

Correction: This story has been updated to reflect that Pressley has not endorsed a candidate in the Senate race.