U.S. Reps. Norma Torres and Jimmy Gomez conducted a congressional oversight inspection of the ICE facility in downtown Los Angeles on Thursday amid reports of an undisclosed holding area for immigrant families.
The visits comes three days after a federal court judge granted the lawmakers and others a temporary restraining order, blocking the Trump administration and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem from enforcing a policy requiring members of Congress to provide a week’s notice before visiting immigration detention facilities.
Torres (D-Pomona) and Gomez (D-Los Angeles) and other plaintiffs filed a lawsuit last year challenging the Homeland Security policy. They won the lawsuit in December but are challenging it once more after several Congress members allege Noem “secretly reimposed” the seven-day-notice requirement.
Congress has stipulated in yearly appropriations packages since 2020 that federal funds may not be used to prevent a member of Congress “from entering, for the purpose of conducting oversight, any facility operated by or for the Department of Homeland Security used to detain or otherwise house aliens.”
The 14-day restraining order allowed Gomez to gain access for the first time since Noem reimposed the advanced notice policy last month. Since June, when immigration enforcement escalated in Los Angeles, he has attempted to conduct several oversight visits there but was denied access.
Gomez, whose district covers downtown, said he was also visiting the facility to look into reports that immigrant families and children and U.S. citizens were being held in an previously unknown area dubbed “B-17.”
Many of the immigrants who have been taken into custody by federal immigration agents are typically held and booked at the downtown L.A. facility’s basement known as B-18. That holding area had become the center of litigation last year over reports of inhumane conditions and lack of access to legal counsel. Some immigrants said they have been held for weeks at the facility.
A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
As Gomez waited to gain access on Thursday, he held a pink jacket, a black backpack with medications for a pregnant woman who may have been held at the facility, and a binder with a copy of the restraining order. Torres was already inside when he arrived.
When he came out about an hour later, he and Torres described what he saw to reporters.
There were holding cells that can hold up to 244 people.
“There was one woman in one [holding cell], two gentlemen in another [holding cell],” he said. “Everything else was empty.” The pregnant woman and family of three he planned to visit were not there.
Gomez said while walking through the underground parking lot he noticed a separate caged area where six men and a woman were being held.
He said he was then shown B-17.
“It was like a waiting room at a DMV, it was small and it had windows where you can check in,” he said. “But nobody was there.”
The agent told him there were at least 15 people being held in B-18, though Gomez said that number appeared to be fewer.
Torres and Gomez said conditions were not as frigid as it has been reported, but they suspect it’s related to a recent power outage. They were concerned about the length of time people are being kept at the facility and that people are not being checked medically.
“It’s always shocking when there’s no one there because you see the [immigration raids],” Gomez said. “That’s always a concern, that’s why I try to come unannounced.”
