Arizona Congresswoman Yassamin Ansari made a surprise visit to an ICE field office in Phoenix on Wednesday, amid reports that the facility is holding detainees for longer than it’s supposed to.
Ansari said she was assured that ICE officers do their best to ensure detainees aren’t kept too long, despite recent reporting by the Arizona Mirror that people are being kept much longer than 12 hours, which is the maximum amount of time they’re supposed to be held at temporary facilities like the midtown office.
That report spurred Ansari to make a surprise visit.
The field office can hold up to 150 detainees and was well below capacity, with 29 people in custody, when she made the unannounced inspection, Ansari said.
She added that she wasn’t allowed to speak to the detainees.
“I feel like every time we do an oversight visit, we’re informed of a new rule of what we can or cannot do and talking with people here is one of the things that we’re no longer allowed to do,” Ansari said.
Ansari says under the Trump administration, the Department of Homeland Security has undeniably violated the rules many times over.
“We know that especially inside the detention centers — in Arizona those include Eloy and the Florence Correctional Center — especially at the facilities that are being run by these private prison companies, we know that people are being treated incredibly inhumanely,” Ansari said.
This week marks Ansari’s 13th visit to an ICE facility. She and other Democratic congressional leaders have been making frequent visits to assess the conditions.
Ansari said she gets a different reception from ICE since former DHS leader Kristi Noem left her position.
Current Secretary Markwayne Mullin took over the agency in March.
“Under Kristi Noem’s leadership, it felt a bit more defensive and aggressive from the part of some of the ICE officials I would speak to,” Ansari said.
She said that ICE employees told her on Wednesday that under Noem’s leadership, ICE facilities across the country received a waiver that stated “it's OK if the time limit for something being held somewhere or the capacity limits are broken.”
But Ansari said that waiver is no longer in effect and expired in July, but was in place for about a year. She didn’t have a copy of the waiver, but said she’ll follow up to get more information about it.
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