ICE agents are separating families. They’re transferring immigrants in the middle of the night right before their immigration court dates. Armed, masked individuals in civilian clothes are pulling people off the street and into unmarked vans.
All the while, the administration insists they’re prioritizing violent criminals and gang members. But we know that’s not true – and ICE’s own data proves it! Non-criminal migrant arrests have surged by 2,000% under the Trump administration. They’re arresting children! They’re arresting people with no criminal records and active asylum claims.
As these abuses escalate, the administration has done everything they can to obstruct congressional oversight of ICE.
Our office has been working tirelessly to help many families desperately searching for loved ones arrested by ICE. For months ICE has ignored our questions, dodged our emails, and stonewalled our calls.
And when we demand answers, ICE slams the door in our face. They force members of Congress to wait an entire WEEK just to walk into a detention facility or speak with detainees.
To protect their privacy, ICE detainees are required to sign privacy release forms with our office before we can investigate their cases – but ICE has put up obstacle after obstacle to delay them from signing to keep us from helping people.
And even when we do secure a signed form, ICE still refuses to answer the most basic questions: why was this person arrested? Where are they being held?
It’s a complete nightmare. Zero transparency. Zero accountability.
So in August, we took it straight to ICE’s doorstep.
We showed up at the ICE detention center in Aurora and demanded answers face-to-face. Under federal law, members of Congress have the constitutional authority to conduct unannounced oversight visits. Despite that, ICE tried to invent a new “policy” to force us to wait seven days.
These aren’t bureaucratic hiccups. They’re deliberate barriers. And in the weeks that followed, ICE showed us just how far they’re willing to go.
At the end of October, we were horrified – along with all of Colorado – when ICE arrested a father named Fernando Jaramillo-Solano and his two minor children while they were driving to school in Durango. They put the kids in handcuffs and didn’t notify their mother that they were detained. And then they shipped them off to a detention center in Texas.
We immediately called for the family’s release.
As soon as legal representatives finally contacted Fernando and his children in Texas, they reported physical abuse while they were in ICE detention.
Together, with the family’s legal team, we moved to get them out of ICE detention as soon as possible.
We called on ICE again and again to release the family. When they didn’t, I spoke directly with Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to demand their release.
They refused.
ICE didn’t care that they had been accepted into the asylum process and had no criminal history. They didn’t care that Denver’s third-ranking ICE official admitted that their arrest was a mistake. And they didn’t bat an eye when we reported the children’s abuse.
This administration has destroyed the last remnants of humanity in our immigration system.
And it’s not just here in Colorado. This is only one in a sea of horrific stories – college students arrested, young children torn from their parents, American citizens detained for days, and credible reports of physical and sexual abuse inside ICE detention facilities.
On Monday, I joined Senator Jon Ossoff and 11 other senators in launching an inquiry into ICE’s unlawful obstruction of congressional oversight.
It’s absolutely unacceptable, and more importantly ILLEGAL, for ICE to make us wait seven days before entering detention centers, or to block us from bringing doctors, attorneys, or other experts on detention facility tours.
Members of Congress need to be able to get into facilities on demand to make sure facilities are humane and safe, and to meet with people who have ongoing immigration cases.
Our fight is not over. Right now, we’re working directly with Fernando’s legal team to demand ICE release him and his children. They’ve been in detention since October 27th – isolated, frightened, and separated from their wife and mother for more than a month.
This is a trauma they will carry for the rest of their lives.
What happened to this family should never happen in this country. We owe them more than thoughts and outrage.
So please, help us fight back. Contact your representatives – especially Republican members – and urge them to demand this family’s release.
We can’t let this administration’s never ending onslaught of distractions keep us from shining a light on the atrocities ICE is committing across the country and to the Jaramillo-Solano family.