WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge declined Monday to temporarily block the Trump administration from enforcing a new policy that would require members of Congress to give a week’s notice before visiting immigration detention facilities.
U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb in Washington, D.C., concluded that the Department of Homeland Security did not violate a previous court order by reinstating a seven-day notice requirement for congressional oversight visits to Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities.
Cobb stressed that she was not ruling on whether the new policy would pass legal muster. Instead, she said, plaintiffs’ attorneys representing several Democratic members of Congress used the wrong “procedural tools” to challenge it. The judge also concluded that the Jan. 8 policy was a new agency action and was not subject to her previous order in favor of the plaintiffs.
Earlier this month, plaintiffs’ attorneys asked Cobb to intervene after three Democratic members of Congress from Minnesota were barred from visiting an ICE facility near Minneapolis — three days after an ICE officer shot and killed U.S. citizen Renee Good in Minneapolis.
Last month, Cobb temporarily blocked a government surveillance access policy. She ruled on Dec. 17 that ICE may be illegal by requiring a week’s notice from members of Congress seeking to visit and observe conditions at ICE facilities.
One day after Goode’s death, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem secretly signed a new memo reinstating another seven-day notice requirement. Plaintiff attorneys from the Democracy Forward legal advocacy group said the Department of Homeland Security did not disclose the latest policy until after U.S. Reps. Ilhan Omar, Kelly Morrison and Angie Craig were initially denied access to an ICE facility at a federal building in Minneapolis.
On Monday, Cobb ruled that the new policy is similar but different from the one announced in June 2025.
“The Court emphasizes that it denies Plaintiffs’ motion solely because it is not the appropriate avenue to challenge Defendants’ January 8, 2026 memorandum and the policies stated therein, and not based on any form of finding that the policy is lawful,” she wrote.
Democratic Progressive Party spokesperson Melissa Schwartz said they are reviewing the judge’s latest order.
“We will continue to use every legal tool at our disposal to stop the administration from evading Congressional oversight,” she said in a statement.
Twelve other Democratic members of Congress have filed a lawsuit in Washington challenging ICE’s revised visitor policy after being denied access to detention facilities. Their lawsuit accuses Republican President Donald Trump’s administration of obstructing congressional oversight of the centers amid a nationwide surge in immigration enforcement actions.
A law prohibits the Department of Homeland Security from using appropriated general funds to prevent members of Congress from entering DHS facilities for oversight purposes. Lawyers for the plaintiffs, Democracies Forward, said the government has not shown that the funds were not used to implement the latest notification policy.
“Appropriations are not a game. They are the law,” plaintiffs’ attorney Kristen Kugel said during Wednesday’s hearing.
Justice Department attorney Amber Richer said the policy Noem signed on Jan. 8 is different from the one Cobb suspended last month.
“This is really a challenge for new policy,” Richer said.
Lawyers for the plaintiffs said the matter is urgent because lawmakers are negotiating funding for the Department of Homeland Security and ICE in the next fiscal year, and the Department of Homeland Security’s annual appropriation is set to expire on January 30.
“This is a critical time for oversight, and members of Congress must be able to conduct oversight of ICE detention facilities without notice to obtain urgent and critical information about ongoing funding negotiations,” the attorneys wrote.
Government lawyers say lawmakers’ concerns about conditions at ICE facilities changing within a week are speculative. But a judge rejected those arguments last month.
“Changing conditions within ICE facilities mean it may be impossible for members of Congress to recreate facility conditions on the day they initially sought access,” wrote Cobb, who was nominated to the bench by Democratic President Joe Biden.
