LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN
June 2, 2026
Heather Cox Richardson
Jun 03, 2026
Officials in the Trump administration have worked hard to restrict the access of members of Congress to the detention centers it has established across the country. Although lawmakers have a constitutional duty to oversee executive agencies and courts have reiterated their authority to conduct unannounced visits to federal immigration facilities, officials have repeatedly tried to limit that access.
Last May they went so far as to arrest Mayor Ras Baraka of Newark, New Jersey, for trespassing after he waited inside the gate of the privately operated Delaney Hall detention center where a staffer had asked him to stand after he accompanied three members of Congress to Delaney Hall, and then stepped outside when asked to leave. After they dropped the charges against Baraka days later, they charged Representative LaMonica McIver (D-NJ) with assault for her actions during a skirmish that broke out when immigration agents arrested Baraka.
On May 11, 2026, Todd Lyons, the acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), tried again, issuing a memo that calls congressional visits âdisruptiveâ and saying ICE will facilitate meetings of lawmakers with people in detention only if the lawmaker can specifically identify the individual in detention and provide âvalid proofâ that the detainee consents to a visit. Any such visit, they said, will require two daysâ advance notice.
On May 22, after writing public letters to call attention to the crowded and unsanitary conditions inside Delaney Hall, the largest detention center in the Northeast, about 300 detainees began a hunger strike to demand the immediate release of young, elderly, and medically vulnerable detainees and to bring attention to the fact that immigration judges are ignoring their cases, leaving them incarcerated.
While much of the protest focuses on the horrific conditions inside the facility, the detainees themselves have focused on their lack of access to the legal system. They wrote: âWe see with deep helplessness and frustration that our due process, rights, and defense have been violated, disregarding benefits granted under the 4th, 5th, and 6th Amendments of the UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION.â
âWe are certain that we are not being processed equally under immigration laws and the ConstitutionâŚ.. We have seen judges in this detention center who are ready to carry out deportations and mass expulsions without properly reviewing cases. We live with anguish and fear of appearing in court. We are witnessing how judges are disregarding decisions of federal judges, for example not honoring HABEAS CORPUS rulings decided by a FEDERAL judge, depriving us of our liberty.â
They asked for help from senators and members of Congress and said, â[W]e trust in God and believe that justice will be done under the law of the United States of America, since it is a sovereign and constitutional country respected worldwide for upholding human rights.â
Since the Delaney Hall detainees began their strike, supporters outside have gathered to show support. Federal agents have clashed with them repeatedly, pepper-spraying Senator Andy Kim (D-NJ) among others. MAGA activists went to the site to counter-protest, and Mayor Baraka established a curfew near the facility. Late last week, Governor Mikie Sherrill, a Democrat, deployed New Jersey state troopers after White House advisor Tom Homanâa former consultant for Delaney Hall operator GEO Groupâthreatened to send âtactical unitsâ to New Jersey if the situation continued. The troopers arrested dozens of protesters.
Today New Jersey attorney general Jennifer Davenport sued the GEO Group for refusing to allow inspectors into the facility in violation of state law. âIf the GEO Groupâwith a $1 billion government contractâhas nothing to hide and the conditions inside Delaney Hall are as safe and as sanitary as this private corporation and the Trump Administration claim, then there is no legitimate reason why my health inspectors are being kept from full access throughout the building,â Sherrill said. âThe people of New Jersey deserve transparency and accountability, and I will continue using all the power of this office to advocate for the detainees and their families.â
In a May 29 interview with me on American Conversations, Senator Kim said that âthe detainees were actually very clear with me⌠theyâre concerned about the conditions, but the main reason theyâre pushing forward right now, on this hunger strike and broader protest, is about the lack of forward movement when it comes to their cases. I remember one of them ran out of the room when I was talking to them, to go grab a piece of paper off a bulletin boardâŚ. The paper, when they brought it back, was about the court docket for the following couple days. And it showed thatâŚthis past Tuesday, when the courts opened up after the holiday weekend, this one judge that they are put in front of has 74 cases before her in just that one day, just on Tuesday. She had 74 cases on her docket. You know, I did theâŚmath. I mean, thatâs roughly about five minutes per case, if thatâs everything is perfectly alignedâŚ. [I]tâs just aâŚfarce. This is not actual justice. This is not actual⌠legal proceedings as per our Constitution, and as per our laws.â
The destruction of the rule of law in Delaney Hall is part of the Trump administrationâs destruction of the rule of law across the United States. This morning, Trump announced he is appointing the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, William Pulte, to become the acting director of national intelligence in addition to his job at the Federal Housing Finance Agency. The director of national intelligence is the nationâs top intelligence official, and federal law requires that the director have âextensive national security expertise.â Pulte has none.
What he does have is willingness to use the power of the government to persecute Trumpâs perceived political enemies. It was Pulte who came up with the scheme of going after Federal Reserve Board member Lisa Cook and New York attorney general Letitia James by accusing them of mortgage fraud. He also advocated investigating thenâFederal Reserve chair Jerome Powell for alleged overruns in the renovation of Federal Reserve buildings.
Today, under pressure from Senate Republicans who recognize that the optics of Trumpâs $1.776 billion slush fund will hurt Republicans in the midterms and demanded the removal of that funding from the budget reconciliation measure they are working on to fund ICE and the Customs and Border Protection (CBP), Trump appears to have dropped that demand. But acting attorney general Todd Blanche told members of Congress today that he would not commit in writing not to proceed with the slush fund, and that the Department of Justice is not dropping the plan to provide Trump, his family, and the Trump Organization broad amnesty for any laws broken in past tax filings and a pass on future audits.
Just after midnight this morning, Trump posted that his criminal conviction on 34 counts of falsifying business records and the civil fraud judgement against him in New York for manipulating his financial statements to get better tax and insurance rates be dismissed, saying he was âan innocent man who has been horribly treated.â As Sophie Brams of The Hill noted, he also called for criminal charges to be launched against New York attorney general James and Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg, who brought the successful lawsuits.
Today the new secretary of homeland security, Markwayne Mullin, refused to assure a U.S. Senate Appropriations subcommittee that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) would follow court orders. Repeatedly, he told Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) that DHS âwill never break the Constitution, and weâre not going to break the law.â But he refused to agree that they would follow court orders. âIf we didnât think courts were politicized, then I would probably be able to answer that,â Mullin said. âBut we see courts over and over again that use their bench for their political opinion, not just the rule of law.â
Kyle Cheney of Politico reported last month that the Trump administration has lost nearly 10,400 court cases over DHS immigration detentions while prevailing in about 1,200. That translates to a 90% loss rate. More than 425 judgesâan overwhelming majority of themâhave decided against the administration. Cheney notes that even a majority of the judges Trump himself appointed have decided against the administration on immigration.
In February, thenâDHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin explained away the administrationâs dismal record by saying that âmany activist judges have attempted to thwart President Trump from fulfilling the American peopleâs mandate for mass deportations.â
But Judge Joseph R. Goodwin of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia wrote: âAntiseptic judicial rhetoric cannot do justice to what is happening. Across the interior of the United States, agents of the federal governmentâmasked, anonymous, armed with military weapons, operating from unmarked vehicles, acting without warrants of any kindâare seizing persons for civil immigration violations and imprisoning them without any semblance of due processâŚ. It is an assault on the constitutional order.â
Today, after Mullin wouldnât agree to obey the courts, suggesting instead that âweâll hold each other accountableâ if ICE breaks the law, Senator Murphy said: âListen, if youâre a Republican or Democrat on this committee, you should be really, really freaked out.â
Former Border Patrol chief Gregory Bovino, who oversaw the operations during which federal agents shot and killed American citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti, joined white nationalist Jared Taylor at a conference of far-right activists and influencers in Portugal over the weekend. As Marion Solletty of Politico reported, in an interview before the conference, Bovino embraced the white nationalism of the Great Replacement theory that says white Europeans and white Americans are in a fight to save their civilization from Black and Brown people.
He claimed that of the 342 million people in the U.S.âhe said there were 420 millionâ100 million are undocumented immigrants who must be removed. But, he added, âour main battle is not with undocumented immigrants or unassimilated immigrants: it is with the bureaucrats of the status quo and the timid politicians, determined to suspend action or wait for the next election cycle.â
âIf there is inspiration gained from the U.S. Border Patrol model and method,â he said, âthen fantastic.â
LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN
HEATHER COX RICHARDSON
