US says shutdown ended lawmaker ICE facility visit requirement

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: Roll Call

Posted October 22, 2025 at 4:50pm


The Trump administration has claimed the partial government shutdown also means the end of a requirement that Immigration and Customs Enforcement give congressional access to detention facilities for oversight visits. The government made the argument in a legal clash with Democratic lawmakers, who had filed a lawsuit against ICE over access to real-time inspections of the facilities and new department guidance that requires at least seven days’ advance notice of a visit.

The lawmakers based that lawsuit on Section 527, a provision included in the fiscal 2024 spending law and applied to funding in the continuing resolution for fiscal 2025, which states that no funds can be used to prevent members or their staffs from entering immigration detention facilities for oversight. But now the Trump administration says the provision expired on Oct. 1 along with the spending law, and ongoing spending is “not subject to the expired general provision known as Section 527,” according to a notice and declaration from ICE official Ralph Ferguson.

“With the expiration of the FY2025 Continuing Resolution, ICE is no longer using for detention operations (including the adoption and implementation of the Congressional visitation protocols at issue in this action) any funds that were appropriated subject to Section 527,” Ferguson states in the declaration.

The government’s stance that the section has expired, if applied more broadly, could extend to some of the dozens, and sometimes hundreds, of provisions in spending bills that define how the federal government can use funds, commonly known as “riders.”

Read more: https://rollcall.com/2025/10/22/us-says-shutdown-ended-lawmaker-ice-facility-visit-requirement/

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REFERENCE - https://www.democraticunderground.com/10143504443

[SunSeeker]

1. If Congress can't oversee because of the shutdown, then ICE can't operate because of the shutdown.

You can't have operations without oversight. Fuck this insanity.

[FBaggins]

7. Congress never loses oversight powers

The problem here is that individual members of Congress lack such power unless Congress creates it (effectively delegating the power)… and in this case that delegation doesn’t exist on its own… it was part of a now-expired piece of legislation.

[SunSeeker]

8. I know the problem. The article states it. How about offering a legal solution, counsel?

You are just restating what the Trump DOJ lawyers are arguing in court. How about offering something that helps us?

In the article, an administrative law professor offers the following helpful comments:

David A. Super, a Georgetown Law professor who focuses on administrative and constitutional law, called the Trump administration’s argument “remarkably aggressive” and said it would mean “appropriations riders will cease to have a great deal of meaning in many important settings.”Super said that normally the restriction would keep ICE from using any funds — or anything bought with those funds — from blocking congressional access.

It is “fairly unlikely” that denying entry to members of Congress would not use restricted funds, “because excluding someone requires you to use a computer that may have been bought with those funds, or put up a barrier that was bought with those funds, or threaten to arrest someone with a bullhorn that was bought with those funds,” Super said.

Super also said that in prior government shutdowns, the government has operated to largely keep the status quo, rather than assert broad new authority.

https://rollcall.com/2025/10/22/us-says-shutdown-ended-lawmaker-ice-facility-visit-requirement/

How about expanding on that, or offering other legal arguments that help us, instead of repeating Bondi's stooges?

[yonder]

2. Making it up as they go along.

[littlemissmartypants]

3. Oh, goody goody. Great news. I will stop filing quarterly taxes and payments then.

I love this arbitrary new rule book we're following.

Let me see...🤔 what other federal requirements can I just completely fu>king ignore?

Equal rights, serious crimes like rape and murder, driving without a license, abusing drugs and alcohol, workplace laws, child protections and parental responsibilities, marriage and sex, housing, animal protection and hunting regulations, gun law, medical law, signing up for selective service when the time comes, littering, disorderly conduct, jaywalking, gambling, giving and receiving bribes, copyright laws, permits, getting an abortion, lewd gestures, profanity, spitting on the floors of restaurants, chewing with my mouth open, throwing used diapers in the toilet, not saying 'God Bless You' after someone sneezes???

I would have mentioned immigration law but we already know the answer to that.

If you have any doubts about the regime being controlled by psychopathic sycophants, I hope that you'll reevaluate your stance.

"It’s a criminal enterprise."
~Malcolm Nance

❤️ RESIST!! ✊️

[llmart]

4. "I will stop filing quarterly taxes and payments then."

This is a very valid point. Year end is coming up and maybe in addition to protesting in the streets we should all decide not to file our tax returns (but only if we know we aren't getting a refund). Oh hell. I'm wondering if those of us who are slated to get refunds will even get them.

[2naSalit]

5. Bullshit...

Their responsibilities are not truncated by the shutdown.

FTFFs!!

[Javaman]

6. this is the feature the repukes have been waiting for in this new government shutdown update.

full on concentration camps here we come.

[RainCaster]

9. The shutdown should end ICE access to these facilities

Our government has no money to pay for these bogus prison sites.