US Rep. Dan Goldman announced Wednesday that he has introduced an amendment to President Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill” aimed at preventing ICE from barring Members of Congress from inspecting facilities where immigrants are being detained.
Goldman says the amendment would ensure funding from the officially named Reconciliation Bill would not be used to prevent congressional oversight at any location or facility related to civil enforcement of immigration law. This would also prevent ICE from quickly altering detention centers just prior to inspections, nor would it require the elected officials to announce their inspection in order to be granted entry.
“Donald Trump and Congressional Republicans’ Big Ugly Bill for Billionaires doesn’t just slash health care and food assistance programs by over a trillion dollars, it increases funding by tens of billions of dollars to expand and accelerate this administration’s authoritarian crackdown on law-abiding, non-violent immigrants,” Goldman said. “It is Congress’ responsibility to ensure this money is used appropriately, and that requires us to do our constitutional and statutory oversight. This administration is not above the law, and I urge my colleagues to adopt this amendment reaffirming Congress’ constitutional authority as an independent and co-equal branch of government.”
This comes after, on June 8, US Reps. Nydia Velázquez and Adriano Espaillat attempted to visit the detention center on the 10th floor of 26 Federal Plaza but were ultimately turned away.
Then, on June 18 — one day after City Comptroller Brad Lander was violently arrested by ICE while observing court proceedings — Goldman and fellow US Rep. Jerry Nadler were denied entry to the 10th floor after engaging in a back-and-forth argument with the field office supervisor.
“We are very concerned about what conditions these immigrants are being held in while this mass deportation scheme is underway,” Goldman said at the time.
Last week Goldman and Espaillat introduced the “No Secret Police Act,” which would require law enforcement officers and agents of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) engaged in border security and civil immigration enforcement to clearly display identification and insignia when detaining or arresting individuals and to ban them from using home-made, non-tactical masks. Velázquez is also championing a similar bill to prevent federal agents from wearing masks.
This was, in itself, a response to federal agents regularly concealing their faces as they detain immigrants during their mandated court appearances.
