Court Deals Setback to Rep Jason Crow Over ICE Oversight Rules Challenge

By: Michael Kunzelman | Colorado Politics

WASHINGTON • A federal judge refused Monday to temporarily block the Trump administration from enforcing a new policy requiring a week’s notice before members of Congress can visit immigration detention facilities.

U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb, who is based in Washington, D.C., concluded that the Department of Homeland Security didn’t violate an earlier court order when it reimposed a seven-day notice requirement for congressional oversight visits to Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities.

Cobb stressed that she isn’t ruling on whether the new policy passes legal muster. Rather, she said, plaintiffs’ attorneys representing several Democratic members of Congress used the wrong “procedural vehicle” to challenge it. The judge also concluded that the Jan. 8 policy is a new agency action that isn’t subject to her prior order, which she issued in the plaintiffs’ favor.

The plaintiffs’ lawyers had asked Cobb to intervene after three Democratic members of Congress from Minnesota were blocked from visiting an ICE facility near Minneapolis earlier this month — three days after an ICE officer shot and killed Renee Good in Minneapolis.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE AT COLORADO POLITICS