An Arizona congressman says the US government violated federal law when it refused to allow him to visit a local restaurant owner held in an immigration detention facility last week.
Greg Stanton, who represents Arizona’s fourth congressional district, is the latest in a series of Democrats who have been denied entry into Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) detention facilities, despite members of Congress’s legal right to conduct oversight without notice at places that detain migrants.
Stanton said he expects to take legal action to hold the Trump administration accountable for violating this law.
“Every time the Trump administration violates the law – whether it’s through impoundment or illegal terminations of government employees or systematic denial of due process rights, or denying members of Congress their obligation and right to visit a detention center – it all has to be challenged legally,” Stanton said. “We can’t look the other way. This is we operate under the rule of law, and this administration does not get to violate the rule of law. You can imagine that we will seek recourse.”
Other Democratic members of Congress have experienced similar denials since Donald Trump’s return to the White House. In one instance in May, LaMonica McIver, a New Jersey representative, was charged with assaulting and interfering with immigration officials after seeking entry into a detention center under her right to congressional oversight of these facilities.
A dozen members of the US House filed a lawsuit on Wednesday against the Trump administration over obstructing congressional oversight of immigration detention facilities. The members say the Trump administration’s policy to require advance notice and approval is illegal and demands that the administration allow these visits without prior notice.
Stanton was trying to visit Kelly Yu, who owns a sushi restaurant, in custody in the Eloy detention center in Eloy, Arizona, where she has been detained since late May. Yu’s husband requested Stanton go check on her after community members connected the family to Stanton’s office.
Yu has lived in the US for more than 20 years and is an “incredible success story”, Stanton said. She’s a restaurateur who provides jobs for others in the community, contributes to local organizations and is involved in her local area, he said. She has never been in trouble with the law, but was denied asylum first in 2005. She has been trying to get citizenship and was picked up while attending a monthly check-in with immigration, 12News in Phoenix reported.
Stanton said he wanted to check on Yu’s condition, highlight her case and observe conditions in the facility.
Her story “does make the case that mass deportation is not good for this country”, Stanton said. “Targeted deportation of people that have committed violent crimes everyone agrees with, but deporting people that are such strong community members, have been here for 20-plus years and are making significant contributions – that doesn’t make sense.”
At the Eloy facility, local immigration officials told him they would be following guidance from the Department of Homeland Security about congressional visits, which they told him now requires a request at least seven days in advance of a visit. He brought a copy of federal law with him, which doesn’t mandate advance notice or approval, but they didn’t budge.
The department instituted the advance notice policy in June, after Democratic officials across the country have repeatedly tried to tour facilities and visit members of their communities detained within them. The visits are one way Democrats are trying to hold Trump accountable amid mass deportations and flouting of the law.
After he was denied entry, Stanton made a request via the DHS directive, but he hasn’t heard back yet about whether he’ll be granted a visit. And besides, he said, the department is clearly violating the law by requiring advance notice and denying members of Congress entry.
“You don’t get to pick and choose which laws you follow,” he said. “And it may be inconvenient to have a member of Congress show up and try to do their duty of oversight, but that doesn’t matter. This is what the law says, and you’ve got to follow the law.”
