Amid growing experiences that U.S. residents have been caught up within the Trump administration’s immigration dragnet, a dozen members of Congress have written to the federal government with pointed questions. None has obtained a reply.
By Nicole Foy for ProPublica
Only a week into President Donald Trump’s second time period, Rep. Adriano Espaillat started to see experiences of Puerto Ricans and others being questioned and arrested by immigration brokers.
So Espaillat, a New York Democrat, did what members of Congress typically do: He wrote to the administration and demanded solutions. That was greater than 10 weeks in the past. Espaillat has not obtained a response.
His expertise seems to be frequent.
No less than a dozen members of Congress, all Democrats, have written to the Trump administration with pointed questions on constituents and different residents whom immigration brokers have questioned, detained and even held at gunpoint. In a single letter, Democrats on the Home Judiciary Committee demanded an inventory of each citizen detained throughout the brand new administration.
None has obtained a solution.
“What we are clearly seeing is that with this administration, they are not responding to congressional inquiries,” stated Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández, a New Mexico Democrat.
Leger Fernández and others wrote to Trump and the Division of Homeland Safety on Jan. 28 after receiving complaints from constituents and tribal nations that federal brokers have been urgent tribal residents in New Mexico for his or her immigration standing, elevating issues about racial profiling.
The congresswoman and others say the shortage of response is a part of a broader sample during which the administration has been transferring to sideline Congress and its constitutional energy to examine the manager department.
“That is a big concern on a level beyond what ICE is doing,” Leger Fernández stated, referring to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a department of DHS. “This administration does not seem to recognize the power and authority and responsibility” of Congress.
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Norman Ornstein, a longtime congressional observer on the American Enterprise Institute, stated prior administrations’ lack of responsiveness has pissed off lawmakers too. However he’s by no means seen one so totally brush off Congress.
“What’s clear now is that the message from Donald Trump and his minions is: ‘You don’t have to respond to these people, whether they are ours or not,’” Ornstein stated, referring to Republicans and Democrats. “That’s not usual. Nothing about this is usual.”
A White Home spokesperson denied that the administration has been circumventing Congress or its oversight. “Passage of the continuing resolution that kept our government open and commonsense legislation like the Laken Riley Act are indicative of how closely the Trump administration is working with Congress,” stated Kush Desai in an announcement.
The White Home didn’t reply questions in regards to the letters. DHS additionally didn’t reply to ProPublica’s questions.
Final month, ProPublica detailed how People have been caught within the administration’s dragnet. Such errors have been made by many administrations over a long time. The federal government typically has not taken steps to scale back errors, corresponding to updating its recordsdata when brokers verify any person’s citizenship. However consultants and advocates have warned that Trump’s aggressive immigration targets — together with arrest quotas for enforcement brokers — make it extra doubtless that residents will get caught up.
ICE and its sister company, Customs and Border Safety, stated in earlier statements to ProPublica that brokers are allowed to ask for residents’ identification. The businesses didn’t present explanations for his or her actions in many of the instances ProPublica requested about.
An Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer within the Bronx borough of New York in December 2024.
Solutions have been additionally laborious to come back by throughout Trump’s first time period, even when Democrats managed the Home and had extra energy over hearings.
Espaillat, the New York consultant, has been in workplace for eight years. He stated he continuously raised immigration questions and issues through the Biden administration too, and received responses.
Republicans complained in regards to the reverse expertise through the Biden administration. They stated the administration was unresponsive to Congress’ questions on immigration, forcing lawmakers to subpoena officers for solutions. (The administration dismissed the strikes as “political posturing.”)
Espaillat stated he’s not shocked the Trump administration has been silent. “They probably don’t have a good answer.”
