Politics
2 New York Representatives Are Denied Access to ICE Facility
Representatives Adriano Espaillat and Nydia Velázquez were turned away when seeking to inspect a migrant detention area inside a Manhattan federal building.
Federal officials prevented two members of Congress on Sunday from entering an immigration detention facility in Manhattan where the representatives were seeking to investigate reports of overcrowding, stifling heat and migrants sleeping on bathroom floors.
The representatives, Adriano Espaillat and Nydia Velázquez, both Democrats from New York, said officials at the Jacob K. Javits Federal Building had denied them access to the 10th-floor detention area because it was a “sensitive facility.”
The building, at 26 Federal Plaza, a few blocks from City Hall, has been the site of recent protests against the transport of migrants there by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. It also houses immigration courts where ICE has been making arrests in recent weeks.
