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A federal judge issued an emergency order on February 2 temporarily blocking Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s latest effort to prevent Democratic lawmakers from making unannounced inspections of federal immigration jails, where at least 38 people have died since Donald Trump returned to the White House.

“Unlawful secrecy has fueled the deadliest era in Department of Homeland Security detention history,” said Andrew Fels, a staff attorney at the migrant rights group Al Otro Lado, in an email to Truthout. “Today’s ruling reaffirms the importance of congressional oversight, particularly when lives, safety, and basic human dignity are at risk.”

The order grants emergency relief to 13 Democratic members of Congress who were blocked by Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials from conducting unannounced oversight inspections of immigration jails. The court previously blocked an order requiring lawmakers to provide prior notice before visiting immigration jails in December. But Noem quietly issued a nearly-identical memo reinstating the policy dated January 8, one day after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent killed Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Protests erupted around the country after ICE agent Jonathan Ross shot Good three times while she was in her car. In the hours after her death, immigration officers in Minnesota assaulted mourning residents and made multiple arrests. As protests continued into the next day, Rep. Ilhan Omar and other Minnesota Democrats arrived to meet with constituents held at the Whipple Federal Building in Minneapolis, where ICE and Border Patrol have continued to detain both immigrants and protesters arrested during the Trump administration’s so-called “immigration enforcement” operation in Minnesota.

Despite the previous ruling against Noem’s earlier policy requiring members of Congress to provide prior notice before visiting immigration jails, Omar and her fellow lawmakers were turned away from the Whipple Federal Building, which the Trump administration has........

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