DHS shutdown curbs detention oversight, Democrat says : NPR

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According to a Texas Democrat, families are finding it increasingly difficult to communicate with loved ones in immigration detention or to locate them amid the current Department of Homeland Security shutdown.

This situation is part of a broader array of complaints from Democratic lawmakers and attorneys concerning oversight and other issues, as the agency enters its sixth week without government funding.

“Many constituents have contacted my office unable to find family members or secure medical treatments for those detained, while Members of Congress are getting inconsistent responses from this administration about their oversight authority and the agency’s role during a funding lapse,” said Rep. Julie Johnson, D-Texas, in a statement to NPR.

The White House and Republicans have spent the past month accusing Democrats of causing the shutdown, which has disrupted some agency operations.

During a recent confirmation hearing for Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., as the new head of the department, Republicans criticized the shutdown, stating it was halting necessary programs while immigration enforcement continued.

Democrats have sought changes to immigration enforcement before approving agency funding. However, Johnson emphasizes that politics should not hinder oversight.

“Regardless of a federal agency’s status, constituents have a fundamental right to information about loved ones in custody or detention. Members of Congress also have a constitutional obligation to conduct oversight,” Johnson stated. “If [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] can continue its operations during a shutdown, Congress must maintain the ability to communicate with the agency and access critical information about constituents’ family members.”

This week, Johnson planned an unannounced visit to the Dallas ICE field office, which houses detainees, to inspect conditions. Although she was granted entry, her staff members were not.

Johnson stated she visited the center because Mohammad Nazeer Paktiawal, an Afghan asylum seeker who assisted U.S. Special Forces, was detained there. He died less than a day after being taken into immigration custody.

Last month, Johnson introduced a bill requiring DHS to continue communications with congressional offices even during a funding lapse.

Uneven, hard to measure impacts from shutdown

Besides detention, the shutdown has had inconsistent impacts on DHS oversight more broadly, according to lawmakers and immigration lawyers.

“While this shutdown seems less visibly disruptive than the last, I would not describe oversight as fully intact. The impacts are more uneven and harder to assess, particularly at the individual case level,” said Marium Uddin, an immigration attorney in Texas.

Uddin noted that this is not the first shutdown affecting the agency; it was part of the record-long government shutdown in the fall, which lasted over six weeks. During that shutdown, DHS confirmed the Office of Detention Oversight was not operational.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced that approximately 100,000 agency employees are furloughed during the current shutdown, though it’s unclear which areas are affected.

DHS has not clarified whether its internal oversight offices are operational, including the already slimmed-down Office of Immigration Detention Ombudsman and the Civil Rights and Civil Liberties office.

DHS’s immigration enforcement continues uninterrupted, having received billions of dollars for deportation and detention goals as part of Republicans’ One Big Beautiful Bill Act last summer.

The shutdown does not impact other parts of the deportation process, such as immigration courts within the Department of Justice.

Like Johnson, New York Democrat Dan Goldman managed to make unannounced visits to the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn and the detention space at 26 Federal Plaza. This contrasts with the previous shutdown, when Congress members were barred from visiting immigration-related facilities. (Lawmakers have since successfully challenged that policy in court; the administration is appealing.)

DHS did not respond to inquiries about their current guidelines for congressional visits during funding lapses.

Beyond Congress members, lawyers said both shutdowns have made it harder for them to contact or track their clients and receive agency responses for requests like temporary release.

“The biggest issues are not necessarily outright denials of access, but delays and lack of clarity,” Uddin noted. “Even small disruptions in those communication channels can have serious consequences for individuals in detention.”

Oversight at DHS already in question

Issues with DHS oversight during the shutdowns have heightened lawmakers’ concerns about a lack of accountability within the agency.

Former employees of the DHS office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties claimed in a statement to Congress this month that the department provided lawmakers with a misleading report on civil rights complaints.

They allege DHS underreported the number, scope, and outcome of complaints and investigations in its latest annual report, required by law to cover fiscal year 2024, which ended in September 2024. They also noted the report was only 17 pages, compared to 129 pages the previous year.

Former CRCL employees—speaking anonymously due to fear of retaliation—say DHS omitted information including investigations and recommendations on the ICE detainee locator, disaster relief program management, and the use of the Migrant Operations Center at Guantanamo Bay. They assert this data was collected for the report as far back as the end of fiscal year 2023, to be published shortly after.

“There’s a wide array of topics and civil rights and civil liberties issues that would have been included,” one former employee told NPR. “Numbers alone don’t really tell you what the story is.”

DHS refuted these claims.

“DHS remains committed to civil rights protections and is streamlining oversight. Previously, these offices obstructed immigration enforcement by creating bureaucratic hurdles and undermining DHS’s mission by exceeding their statutory missions,” stated an unnamed DHS spokesperson. “Instead of supporting law enforcement efforts, they often acted as internal adversaries rather than neutral oversight bodies.”

The spokesperson added that “CRCL officials in the Trump Administration inherited many data integrity issues, inflated statistics, and a case management system that violates industry best practices for such systems.”

“New CRCL leadership has been hard at work correcting these failures and sent a report to Congress that accurately and honestly reflects the true CRCL workload,” the spokesperson said.