A prolonged Department of Homeland Security funding lapse is making it harder for families to locate or communicate with loved ones in immigration detention and complicating congressional oversight, Democratic lawmakers and immigration attorneys say.
Rep. Julie Johnson of Texas, who has pressed the issue publicly, says numerous constituents have reported being unable to find detained relatives or obtain medical information during the agency’s sixth week without full funding. She told NPR her office has received inconsistent responses from DHS about what congressional staff can do during the lapse, even as some enforcement functions appear to be continuing.
“Constituents have a fundamental right to information about loved ones in custody,” Johnson said, adding that members of Congress have a constitutional duty to conduct oversight. She has argued that if Immigration and Customs Enforcement can keep operating during a shutdown, Congress must be able to communicate with the agency to help constituents.
This week Johnson made an unannounced visit to the Dallas ICE field office that detains migrants; she was permitted entry, but her staff were not. She said she went to the facility because it held Mohammad Nazeer Paktiawal, an Afghan asylum seeker who aided U.S. Special Forces and who died less than a day after being taken into immigration custody. Johnson also introduced legislation to require DHS to maintain communications with congressional offices during funding gaps.
The shutdown’s effects on DHS oversight are uneven and difficult to measure, attorneys and lawmakers say. Some functions appear disrupted while others continue. Immigration attorney Marium Uddin in Texas described the current impacts as less visibly disruptive than in the prior record-long shutdown, but still significant at the individual case level: delays, confusion and lack of clarity that make it harder to locate clients, request temporary releases or secure medical care.
DHS Secretary Kristi Noem has said roughly 100,000 agency employees are furloughed during the shutdown, but officials have not clarified which programs or offices are affected. DHS has not directly answered questions about whether internal oversight units — including the Office of Immigration Detention Ombudsman and the Civil Rights and Civil Liberties (CRCL) office — are operating.
Despite the shutdown, immigration enforcement appears to be proceeding. Last summer, Congress approved billions in funding for deportation and detention priorities as part of Republican-led legislation, and immigration courts fall under the Department of Justice, which is not subject to the same lapse.
Members of Congress have reported varying experiences visiting detention facilities. New York Democrat Dan Goldman was able to make unannounced visits to the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn and detention space at 26 Federal Plaza. That contrasts with the prior shutdown, when lawmakers were barred from such visits; that restriction was later challenged successfully in court, though the administration is appealing. DHS did not provide current guidelines for congressional visits during funding lapses when asked.
Former DHS oversight staff have raised broader concerns about accountability at the agency. Several former employees of DHS’s CRCL office told Congress this month that the department’s most recent, abbreviated annual report underreported the number and scope of civil rights complaints and omitted information on topics they say had been collected for the fiscal 2024 report. They said the shorter report lacked context, investigation details and recommendations related to items such as the ICE detainee locator, disaster relief program management and the Migrant Operations Center at Guantanamo Bay.
DHS disputed those claims in a statement, saying the department is streamlining oversight to avoid obstructing immigration enforcement and that new CRCL leadership is correcting prior data integrity and case-management problems. An unnamed DHS spokesperson described previous CRCL practices as having inflated statistics and deviated from statutory missions; former employees, speaking on background, said omissions left gaps in accountability.
Attorneys and advocates warn that even small interruptions in communication or access during a shutdown can have serious consequences for detained individuals — from missed legal deadlines to delayed medical care. With oversight activities already contested and some offices uncertainly staffed, lawmakers and advocates say the shutdown has compounded an existing patchwork of accountability concerns at DHS.