Ossoff, Warnock launch inquiry into DHS limits on Congressional oversight of detention centers

Democratic U.S. senators launched an inquiry on Monday into the Trump administration’s policy of restricting access to federal detention facilities.

Georgia Sens. Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, along with 11 other colleagues, sent a letter to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem saying that the department’s new policies violated federal law and obstructed congressional oversight.

The letter cited the Further Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2024, which requires DHS to allow members of Congress to inspect facilities without notice and to allow their staff to enter facilities with 24-hour notice. 

“In the course of Sen. Ossoff’s ongoing investigation of human rights abuses in federal immigration detention, ICE arbitrarily required seven-day notice for Congressional staff to inspect a facility, postponing an urgent inspection of conditions for children held in a ‘family’ detention center” the letter claimed.

The inquiry is the latest request from Ossoff, who has been investigating human rights violations in immigration detention facilities. His office has released two reports since July, one of which alleged abuses of pregnant women and children in immigration detention in Georgia.

“The American people demand and deserve secure borders. The American people also believe every human being should be treated with dignity and respect, and where anybody is being denied necessary medical care or necessary nutrition, that should concern us all,” Sen. Ossoff said in a statement

DHS sent out a policy memo in June that asked members of Congress to give at least 72 hours notice for visits and held that ICE field offices are not subject to the federal law that requires Congressional oversight.

A DHS spokesperson dismissed the letter as “fearmongering” and said that staffers of both Sens. Ossoff and Warnock have toured ICE detention facilities six times in 2025, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.