Congress rediscovers ICE oversight authority

• Some oversight visits have been particularly contentious, including a May incident outside a new ICE facility that led to an indictment against Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-N.J.).

The big picture: "This is the highest number of Congressional visits organized and hosted by ICE since we began tracking this data in FY 2016," ICE Acting Director Todd Lyons said in a statement.

• "However, this dramatic increase in visits coincides with a rise in media-driven political theatre by certain representatives," Lyons said.
• "It's too bad that after these visits, sanctuary lawmakers fail to shine a light on the murderers, rapists, pedophiles, gang members and terrorists in these facilities."

Zoom in: The ICE detention population swelled in 2025, holding more than 65,700, according to the latest agency data. Many more people are also in processing or temporary holding facilities in ICE custody.

• "Just given what we've seen [in the media] and heard from constituents, I think it's incumbent upon us to go and see for ourselves," said Homeland Security Committee Ranking Member Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.).

By the numbers: Members of Congress have made 165 visits to ICE detention centers in the 2025 fiscal year, with 154 of those visits coming after Jan. 20, according to the agency.

The other side: Thompson argues that these visits can have an impact for vulnerable people in detention.

• After a site visit in Louisiana, where Thompson went to see a pregnant woman who had been detained for three months, ICE released her, Thompson said in a brief interview. The release came even though the detainee had previously been classified as a high-level criminal, signified by a red jumpsuit in detention, he said.
• Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) has also helped release detainees on bond after visits to detention sites.
• "Every member of Congress is getting contacted by constituents who have had family members disappeared or co-workers or colleagues or friends that are in horrifying conditions and detention centers that are being transferred from facility to facility that are not being provided with due process," Jayapal said.

But changing detention conditions overall has been fruitless.

• "Quite frankly, they haven't changed anything of their behavior, and they continue to do unlawful things, and nothing's gonna change about that until they're gone out of office," said McIver, whose case stemming from one of her oversight visits is ongoing. She pleaded not guilty.
• 31 people died in ICE custody in 2025, according to Jayapal, whose office receives death reports as the top Democrat on the Subcommittee on Immigration, Integrity, Security, and Enforcement.

The bottom line: Detention conditions have long been an issue in the immigration system.

• "We frequently and regularly received complaints related to conditions in ICE detention facilities, including complaints that the guards had assaulted someone, that there was no access to legal resources, that the food was rancid, or that there was no privacy when using the bathrooms, for example," Kate Voigt said at a congressional hearing in December.
• Voigt, now at the ACLU, was fired from an office that oversaw detention conditions at DHS in March, where she worked as a senior policy adviser during Biden's administration.
• "Every year, we also conducted approximately a dozen investigations at ICE detention facilities to investigate a group of complaints," she said.