ICE cannot use budget sleight-of-hand to block members of Congress from conducting unannounced inspections of its processing and detention facilities, a federal judge ruled Monday.
Judge Jia Cobb, a Biden appointee to the court in Washington, issued a stay of the Department of Homeland Security’s Jan. 8 policy that had tried to impose a seven-day advance notice requirement on members of Congress.
She said the spending law that has funded DHS and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement for several years includes language guaranteeing the access.
DHS had tried to argue that its new policy limiting ICE access was actually carried out under a different law, last summer’s One Big Beautiful Bill budget act, which didn’t contain the access rules for Congress.
But Judge Cobb said that was too much of a stretch.
“The power of the purse rests with Congress, and even a deep-pocketed agency must comply with Congress’s restrictions on the permissible uses of appropriated funds,” she wrote.
The case has become a flashpoint for relations between the Trump administration and congressional Democrats, who say inspections are needed given a growing population of migrants detained as part of President Trump’s push for mass deportations.
Every annual bill funding DHS since 2020 has included language ordering ICE to open up to members of Congress whenever they show up, and to give access to congressional staffers with 24 hours’ notice.
But that language wasn’t included in last year’s budget law, which included tens of billions of dollars to sustain ICE’s detention system.
DHS argued as long as it was using the budget law money, not the annual appropriations money, the access restrictions don’t apply.
Judge Cobb, though, said it was impossible to unwind the two.
She said Secretary Kristi Noem’s office, which wrote the current policy, operates under the regular annual funding. So the new policy was crafted using the money — which she said was a violation of the law.
DHS has argued that since its funding lapsed more than two weeks ago — Democrats have blocked passage of a new funding bill, demanding changes to ICE — it’s not bound by the spending bill restrictions anyway.
Judge Cobb, though, said DHS is incurring obligations in anticipation of full spending, and she said the access restrictions apply.
Judge Cobb had previously issued a temporary restraining order against DHS over congressional access. Her ruling Monday was more lasting, staying the ICE policy indefinitely.
