Federal immigration facilities become backdrops for Democrats looking to fight Trump's policies

WASHINGTON — As Democrats here seek to show voters they are taking the fight to President Trump, they’re increasingly using federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities — and their ability to inspect them — as a backdrop for their messaging.

Immigration detention centers as well as dozens of ICE field offices — where growing numbers of suspected undocumented migrants are being held in reportedly poor conditions amid the administration’s mass deportation effort — are drawing alarm and protest nationwide.

Members of Congress have the authority to conduct unannounced inspections of these facilities, and as backlash to the administration’s immigration agenda grows, Democratic lawmakers are exercising that power more and more.

“This is what you want to do if you are worried about what’s happening,” said Representative Bennie Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat and the ranking member on the House panel that oversees the Department of Homeland Security.

The ICE field office for the Boston region, which sits in a nondescript office park next to the Burlington Mall and Interstate 95, has served as a stage for the broader story.

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Since last June, four Massachusetts members of Congress — Senator Ed Markey and Representatives Seth Moulton of Salem, Jake Auchincloss of Newton, and Katherine Clark of Revere — have visited the facility in hopes of inspecting it. And so have colleagues from neighboring states, such as Representatives Chellie Pingree of Maine and John Larson of Connecticut. All are Democrats.

Some of these officials have made it inside; some haven’t. The Trump administration last year implemented a policy requiring members of Congress to give advance notice of their intent to visit, a change that has sparked a legal challenge from Democrats.

Moulton, whose district includes Burlington, told the Globe it was no coincidence the administration made that move after site visits such as the one he and Auchincloss made in June after the arrest of 19-year old Marcelo Gomes da Silva. Gomes da Silva, a Brazilian national, arrived in the United States at age 6 and was detained by ICE on his way to volleyball practice.

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Gomes da Silva was held in Burlington for nearly a week, and later attested he and other detainees were given crackers instead of meals, had to sleep on the floor, and were denied basic hygiene. Moulton and Auchincloss found the conditions at Burlington sorely inadequate when they went inside;

Moulton went again in December.

“Oversight is a fundamental responsibility of Congress, and it’s not a photo op — it’s pressure,” Moulton said.

DHS did not respond to a request for comment.** **

But during a House Judiciary Committee oversight hearing on Wednesday, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem was questioned by Democrats about a range of issues including the agency’s handling of member visits to detention sites.

“I’m aware of the visitation and oversight responsibility, and we work every day to try to accommodate members of Congress,” Noem said.

But there is still an unavoidable element of political calculation to Democrats’ appearances. Many activists are now expecting their representatives to escalate their resistance to ICE, and showing up at a local facility to exercise oversight authority is a way to do it.

That may partially explain why Democratic members in contested primaries, from New England to elsewhere, have been among those most consistently using this power.

Representative Angie Craig of Minnesota, for instance, is running in a contentious Senate primary against progressive Peggy Flanagan. Last year, Craig was one of a handful of Democrats who voted for the Laken Riley Act, a controversial bill that granted expanded immigration enforcement powers to the federal government. Since the killing of Renee Good by ICE agents in January, Craig has visited an ICE field office near Minneapolis three times, finally gaining access on the third try.

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Those outraged by Trump’s immigration agenda want to see members of Congress do what they can, said Ezra Levin, cofounder of the progressive activist group Indivisible, and going to ICE facilities is “an obvious tool in the tool belt.”

But it’s not a tool that can be deployed without drawing skepticism.

“The question is, are you engaging in performative opposition,” said Levin, or engaging in a broader strategy to “limit the damage the administration is doing?”

The situation reflects two key realities of Trump’s second term: how his vastly escalated immigration agenda has consumed the national political conversation, and how urgent a priority it has become for Democrats to escalate their tactics to oppose it.

Dramatic clashes at federal facilities have ensued. In May 2025, members of Congress from New Jersey tried to stop federal agents from arresting the Newark mayor at a protest outside a migrant detention facility there. The Department of Justice charged Representative LaMonica McIver with assaulting law enforcement, which she denied. Her colleagues fiercely criticized the indictment as inappropriate and politically motivated.

In June, New York Democrats, including 10 members of Congress, demanded access to the ICE field office in Manhattan. The situation quickly became hostile, and Brad Lander, then a candidate for mayor, was aggressively restrained and arrested in a hallway. (In December, when Lander announced his campaign to challenge Democratic** **Representative Daniel Goldman, his launch video led with the incident.)

While the dynamics are more intense than ever, their roots date to Trump’s first term, when immigration facilities became front lines in the conflict over Trump’s policies — and arenas for Democrats to draw attention to themselves as they fought back.

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In June 2019, a number of Democratic lawmakers were shown inside detention facilities in Texas and affirmed reports that children, separated from their parents, were being held in inhumane conditions. A facility in Homestead, Fla., that held many migrant children became a regular stop for 2020 Democratic presidential candidates, including Senator Elizabeth Warren.

Now, Trump’s renewed immigration crackdown has ensnared more people, and led to more sites for Democrats to scrutinize. At the end of last year, more than 70,000 people were being detained in immigration facilities — nearly double the number when Trump took office — in locations ranging from detention centers to ICE field offices.

ICE offices like the one in Burlington, which got little attention during Trump’s first administration, are generating alarming reports because they were not intended to hold detainees for longer than a day.

“Fundamentally, Burlington is supposed to be a processing facility, not a detention facility,” said Moulton, who visited the facility during Trump’s first term.

Under the annual federal laws that fund DHS, lawmakers are permitted to conduct unannounced inspections of federal detention facilities at any time. On that basis, a group of Democrats filed a lawsuit challenging the administration’s attempt to require advance notice.

A federal judge has three times ruled in their favor, but the decisions only apply to the 13 lawmakers who are plaintiffs in the case. Members such as Clark, the second-ranking House Democrat, have still been denied access.

“The rules change depending on what’s going on the ground,” said Representative Jimmy Gomez, a California Democrat who is one of the plaintiffs. “If the Trump administration feels like they’re on their heels, they have a setback when it comes to ICE and [US Customs and Border Patrol] in the eyes of the public, then they lock it down.”

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Democrats believe it’s “absolutely essential,” as Representative Seth Magaziner of Rhode Island told the Globe, to be able to visit ICE facilities unannounced. Several members have reported signs that facility officials have moved migrants out, or cleaned things up, ahead of scheduled visits.

That “says to me that they have a lot to hide,” argued Representative Pramila Jayapal of Washington state.

Democrats are likely to keep visiting in greater numbers as Trump continues his deportation agenda — and imminent primary elections are likely to add to the political stakes.

Larson, the Connecticut Democrat, is facing several primary challengers. The congressman notified the Burlington office the day before his trip but was denied entry — and shared the experience, as well as his outrage, in social media posts.

Asked by the Globe if his primary played a role in his trip, Larson said in a statement he went “because ICE has infiltrated the communities I represent, sending armed, masked agents to raid car washes and tear mothers from their children” in towns around his district.

“Under this administration, ICE has become Donald Trump’s secret police force, and I had to see what they were doing at these facilities with my own eyes,” Larson said.

Moulton, who is challenging Markey for his Senate seat, acknowledged the campaign but said, “I have a job as a congressman to do, and that’s what I’m focused on, doing the right thing by my constituents and the immigrants unlawfully targeted by ICE.

“That’s why I go to Burlington.”

Sam Brodey can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him @sambrodey.