Whipple detention center oversight visit finds empty facility after advance notice
Whipple detention center oversight concerns intensified after members of Congress arrived to find the facility empty following a seven-day advance notice to DHS.
Attorneys who previously entered the immigration detention center at the Whipple Federal Building described crowded holding cells, detainees shackled by the ankle, no bedding and piles of trash.
But when U.S. Reps. Angie Craig and Ilhan Omar provided the Department of Homeland Security with seven days’ advance notice of their visit, they arrived Friday afternoon to find the facility empty and completely clean.
“We went into the facility, and there was not a single detainee that we could see or talk to,” Omar said. “Every cell, every inch of it, was completely empty.”
Craig and Omar submitted formal notice to DHS the week prior and received confirmation the day before their visit. When they arrived, Omar said she was told detainees had been moved out shortly before noon.
“It seems very convenient that they removed anyone who had been arrested today from the facility 30 minutes before we arrived,” Omar said.
Sen. Tina Smith, who had a separate scheduled visit that day, was also told detainees had left shortly before she arrived.
Shifting Numbers, Denied Access
Omar said DHS officials initially told her there were 10 detainees inside, then indicated those individuals were gone. She said officials later referenced an additional five people.
“They said 10 when we first got there, and 10 were gone. And then they said there were another five,” Omar said.
Omar brought privacy release forms and requested access to the remaining detainees but said she was denied. She offered to slide the forms under the cell doors and view detainees through the glass. As staff escorted the delegation toward the cell block, she said an official announced there was no one left.
“They said, ‘No, we cannot permit you to go into the cell to see the detainees,’” Omar said. “They took us into an empty cell.”
Craig said DHS officials told lawmakers the agency is now averaging about 20 arrests per day in Minnesota, down sharply from an earlier surge that brought roughly 3,000 agents to the state, with fewer than 500 remaining.
According to Craig, DHS said detainees are now being held in four county jails rather than at the Whipple facility. Omar said she was promised a list of detainees in those jails so she could determine whether any are her constituents.
Craig also said officials confirmed that ICE agents are required to provide their badge number if asked. She said agents have been directed not to stage near hospitals, schools or houses of worship, even as she referenced reports of agents near Spanish immersion schools this week.
“Just this week, we have heard that there are agents staging near Spanish immersion schools in Minnesota,” Craig said. “If citizens see this happening, ask those badge numbers, get them to your member of Congress or our two U.S. senators, and we will do everything in our power to hold those agents accountable.”
Omar raised similar concerns about ICE activity near schools in Columbia Heights and Fridley. She said Sam Olson, a local DHS director, told her such staging should not be happening.
Oversight Dispute
Omar criticized the seven-day notice requirement for congressional oversight visits.
“We are going to continue to challenge the idea that we need notice in order for us to do our oversight duties,” Omar said. “The idea is that nothing should happen in the darkness in America to subvert people’s civil liberties.”
The Star Tribune previously reported that a Muslim woman was shackled next to three men for nearly 24 hours and told to use toilet paper during her menstrual cycle while detained at the Whipple. The woman, Aliya Rahman, a Bangladeshi American who was detained on her way to treatment for brain trauma, reportedly blacked out on the cell floor.
“We know oftentimes, when some of these facilities know that you are coming,” Omar said, “there is a cleanup.”
Craig said the notice requirement contradicts federal law.
“In the appropriations law in this country, we have written — and Donald Trump has signed — that members of Congress can ask to be allowed into these facilities with absolutely no notice,” Craig said. “Once again, Donald Trump’s Department of Homeland Security is violating the law.”
A federal judge has twice blocked DHS from enforcing the seven-day notice requirement for congressional oversight visits. Democrats argue that the administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement requires heightened scrutiny.
DHS funding has become a new flashpoint after the agency told a federal judge that a partial government shutdown, triggered when Congress left for recess without a deal, allowed it to bar unannounced visits.