A federal appeals court on Friday allowed members of Congress to continue to conduct oversight visits to immigration detention facilities without a seven-day notice, with one judge saying the Department of Homeland Security did not show the visits were anything more than an administrative inconvenience. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit voted unanimously to reject a request from the Trump administration to allow DHS to enforce the latest versions of the restrictions while they are appealing a lower court order that blocked the policy. Judge Neomi Rao, in the order wrote the issue was a “close call” and said the government is likely to succeed on appeal based on whether the lawmakers who challenged the policy have a right to bring the lawsuit. But she said the administration had not met its burden to show “irreparable injury” from the lower court’s halting of the seven-day advance notice policy. “The Members have no standing to maintain this lawsuit, so the government is very likely to succeed on the merits of its appeal. But at this stage the government has not sufficiently substantiated its claim of irreparable injury,” Rao wrote. The ruling is the latest in a court fight over the ability of members of Congress to conduct unannounced visits to immigration detention facilities, amid concerns over the treatment of detainees. Earlier this year, Judge Jia M. Cobb of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia halted the latest versions of the restrictions from then-Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. In that ruling, the judge concluded that the congressional lawmakers were likely to succeed in challenging the agency policy based on the nature of appropriations and the Administrative Procedure Act.
