Several Democratic lawmakers on Sunday paid a “surprise Father’s Day visit” to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention center in New Jersey, capping off a week of heightened tensions surrounding the issue of migrant family separations.
Reps. Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.), Jerrold Nadler (N.Y.), Adriano Espaillat (N.Y.), Carolyn Maloney (N.Y.), Frank Pallone Jr. (N.J.), Albio Sires (N.J.) and Bill Pascrell (N.J.) arrived around 9 a.m. at the Elizabeth, N.J., center, which houses migrants who were separated from their families after illegally crossing the border.
{mosads}According to Jeffries, the lawmakers were blocked from entering the facility after meeting initial resistance from ICE staff.
Maloney tweeted that the group was allowed in more than an hour later after “banging on the door” and telling ICE staff and local police that they would not move until they were let in.
“After being made to wait over an hour. After having to deal with local PD. After banging on the door and making it clear that we WILL NOT MOVE until we’re allowed in, ICE is finally granting us access to see individuals who have been separated from their families,” Maloney tweeted.
“We are now inside speaking with detainees who were separated from their children when they sought asylum in the US from terrible violence and danger at home,” Nadler tweeted.
“Protests outside the ICE detention center in Elizabeth continue to swell as I and my House colleagues tour the facility. Americans are fed up with the Trump administration’s cruelty,” Pascrell tweeted.
ICE said in a statement that media tours of the facilities require advance notice.
“The Congressmen were allowed to visit several detainees. Media tours need an advanced written request to ICE,” the agency said.
Sunday’s visit in New Jersey comes amid a growing campaign from Democrats and some Republicans to tour detention facilities housing migrant children who have been separated from their family members.
Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) is scheduled to lead a group of congressional lawmakers on a tour of a Brownsville, Texas, facility later Sunday.
Rep. Will Hurd (R-Texas) visited a similar facility in Tornillo, Texas, on Friday night.
The tours come amid congressional pushback against the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” policy of separating migrant families who cross the border illegally.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced last month that the Justice Department would enact the policy, which aggressively prosecutes adults attempting to cross the U.S.–Mexico border illegally. At the time, Sessions acknowledged the process could lead to children being separated from their parents upon being apprehended.
Trump administration officials have repeatedly defended the policy, arguing that it acts as a deterrent against illegal immigration.
Democrats and Republicans, however, have spoken out against the practice, calling it cruel, immoral and un-American.
The Trump administration has indicated it will not unilaterally end the practice. Instead, the president and other White House officials have blamed Democrats for refusing to negotiate new immigration laws.
Updated at 12:56 p.m.