Democratic Whip Katherine Clark, the second-highest ranking Democrat in the House, said she was turned away from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Burlington field office early Monday morning when she arrived for an unannounced oversight visit.
Clark, who has been to the facility before, said her office has heard many complaints about the Department of Homeland Security’s Burlington ICE center, including that detainees there are having trouble accessing “basic things like showers,” and “really critical, constitutional things like their lawyers.” Despite identifying herself as a member of Congress, Clark said she was denied access for about an hour by DHS officials who said she lacked authority to enter unannounced.
“Every single bit about the way that DHS, ICE and even this facility in Burlington is operating, makes me profoundly angry, and makes me deeply worried and fearful for not only the American citizens who have been detained, even deported, shot and killed by ice agents, but for law-abiding immigrant families that are being terrorized,” Clark told GBH News.
“It is what we are seeing across the country, this absolute lack of transparency [and] lawless behavior of DHS and their officials,” she continued. “I should be able to get in, look at the facilities unannounced so that [conditions] can be changed. Seeing what detainees are experiencing in the moment and ask questions and have them answer them in real time — that is what the Constitution allows me to do.”
The incident comes as congressional members across the country attempt to gain access to ICE facilities following a Jan. 8 memo from Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem requiring requests to visit ICE facilities be made a minimum of seven calendar days in advance.
Clark accused the Trump administration of ignoring the law and hiding behind “made-up rules,” and pointed to a federal court emergency ruling earlier this month that granted 13 other members of Congress the explicit right to conduct unannounced oversight visits to DHS facilities that house suspected undocumented immigrants.
“DHS today decided that if you were not a member of Congress who was an original plaintiff, they’re still not going to let you in,” she said. “So, we’ll go back to court, we will get that order expanded, and I will be back to Burlington to make sure that they are operating in a lawful and humane way.”
The facility, known within the agency as the Boston Field Office, has been used to house thousands of people suspected of lacking legal status as the Trump administration’s enforcement efforts have surged in several areas across New England, including Connecticut, Maine and across the Greater Boston area.
The Burlington facility is supposed to be used as a processing center rather for long-term detention.
After a December visit, Massachusetts U.S. Senator Ed Markey denounced conditions at the facility as “horrifying,” citing overcrowded cells and lack of medical access.
Clark said an unannounced visit would help lawmakers see “what is really happening when people are not expecting you to show up and they don’t have time to make things look good, if that’s what they want to do.”
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement did not immediately respond to GBH News’ request for comment Monday.
