WRC Statement on DHS Restrictions on Congressional Oversight

Last week, the Department of Homeland Security issued a new policy further restricting access to ICE detention facilities for Members of Congress. The policy dramatically reduces one of the last meaningful avenues for oversight over these facilities.

For months, the Women’s Refugee Commission (WRC) has been tracking widespread violations of US policies intended to prevent the detention of pregnant, postpartum, and lactating women, and the worsening treatment of these women in detention facilities. Congressional oversight, including from Senator John Ossoff and the Senate Judiciary Committee, has been vital to exposing the dangerous conditions these women experience.

“This new policy will make it significantly harder to conduct meaningful oversight, protect pregnant and postpartum women from wrongful detention, and prevent needless family separations,” said Zain Lakhani, WRC’s Director of Migrant Rights and Justice. “Reduced transparency and accountability will increase the risk that some of the country’s most vulnerable women will be detained and denied the medical care they require. Congressional oversight is also essential to ensure that ICE complies with its own policies to protect family unity and prevent parents from being deported without their children.”

On a recent trip to the La Lima and Belen reception centers in Honduras, WRC and Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) documented widespread violations of the Detained Parents Directive, the administration’s policy governing the treatment of parents detained by ICE. WRC and PHR spoke to dozens of parents who were never asked if they had children at the time they were detained and were deported without being given an opportunity to bring their children with them—both violations of the policy. Our conversations with reception center workers, including physicians and social workers, suggested that hundreds of parents have been arriving with similar stories in recent months.

Reducing Congressional oversight over detention facilities will make it significantly harder to monitor when ICE is complying with its own policies and reduces the ability to prevent long-term, or permanent, separations.