Families are finding it harder than usual to contact loved ones in immigration detention or to learn where they are being held amid the current Department of Homeland Security shutdown, Rep. Julie Johnson, D-Texas, says. Her concerns add to a range of complaints from Democratic lawmakers and immigration attorneys about diminished oversight and spotty agency responses as DHS enters a sixth week without funding.
“I have had numerous constituents reach out to my office who have been unable to locate family members or secure medical treatments for those held in detention, all while Members of Congress continue to receive inconsistent responses from this administration regarding the scope of their oversight authority and the role of the agency during a lapse in funding,” Johnson said in a statement to NPR.
The White House and Republicans have largely blamed Democrats for the shutdown, which officials say has slowed some DHS operations. During a recent confirmation hearing for Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., to lead the department, Republicans argued the lapse was blocking needed programs while immigration enforcement continued. Democrats have pressed for changes to immigration enforcement before approving DHS funding, but Johnson says politics should not prevent congressional oversight or families’ access to information.
“Regardless of whether a federal agency or department is open, 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 said. “If [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] can continue its operations even during a shutdown … then Congress must retain the ability to communicate with the agency and secure critical information for constituents about their family members.”
Johnson made an unannounced visit this week to the Dallas ICE field office, which holds detainees. She was allowed inside, but her staff were not. Her visit focused on the case of Mohammad Nazeer Paktiawal, an Afghan asylum seeker who had assisted U.S. Special Forces and died less than a day after being taken into immigration custody.
Last month Johnson introduced a bill that would require DHS to continue communicating with congressional offices during funding lapses.
Uneven, hard-to-measure impacts
Lawmakers and immigration lawyers say the shutdown’s effects across DHS are inconsistent and often difficult to track at the individual case level. “While this shutdown appears less visibly disruptive than the last, I would not characterize oversight as fully intact. The impacts are more uneven and harder to measure, particularly at the individual case level,” said Marium Uddin, an immigration attorney in Texas.
This is not DHS’s first shutdown in recent years. During the record-long government shutdown last fall that stretched more than six weeks, DHS confirmed its Office of Detention Oversight was not operating. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has said about 100,000 DHS employees are furloughed during the current lapse, though it is unclear which units are affected.
DHS has not answered questions about whether internal oversight offices are functioning, including the already reduced Office of Immigration Detention Ombudsman and the Civil Rights and Civil Liberties (CRCL) office. At the same time, immigration enforcement appears to be continuing, in part because the agency received billions in prior appropriations tied to deportation and detention goals. The shutdown does not affect immigration courts, which are under the Department of Justice.
Access and oversight for lawmakers and lawyers
Some members of Congress, such as New York Democrat Dan Goldman, have been able to make unannounced visits to detention facilities during this shutdown, a contrast to the prior lapse when lawmakers were barred from inspecting immigration-related sites. That earlier policy was successfully challenged in court, though the administration is appealing. DHS has not published current guidelines for congressional visits during funding gaps.
Beyond congressional access, attorneys say shutdowns have made it harder to reach or monitor clients in custody and to obtain responses from the agency on matters like temporary release. “The biggest issues are not necessarily outright denials of access, but delays, lack of clarity,” Uddin said. “Even small disruptions in those communication channels can have serious consequences for individuals in detention.”
Oversight already under scrutiny
Concerns about oversight predate the current shutdown. Former CRCL employees told Congress this month they believe DHS provided lawmakers with a misleading annual report on civil rights complaints covering fiscal year 2024. They said the report, which was 17 pages, underreported the number, scope and outcomes of complaints and investigations; the prior year’s report was 129 pages.
Former CRCL staff—speaking anonymously out of fear of retaliation—said DHS omitted information collected as far back as the end of fiscal 2023, including investigations and recommendations related to the ICE detainee locator, disaster relief program management and the Migrant Operations Center at Guantanamo Bay. “There’s a wide array of topics and civil rights and civil liberties issues that would have been referenced,” one former employee said, noting that numbers alone do not tell the whole story.
DHS disputed those claims, saying it remains committed to civil rights protections while streamlining oversight. A DHS spokesperson, unnamed in the statement, said past CRCL leadership had obstructed immigration enforcement and that the office inherited data integrity issues and an inadequate case management system. “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 added.