Congresswoman Matsui calls Sacramento ICE facility visit ‘sanitized,’ pushes for more transparency

Democratic Congresswoman Doris Matsui made a scheduled visit today to a Sacramento building federal immigration officials use to detain immigrants. This comes after she’s been denied entry twice during attempted surprise visits. 

She called her inspection of the building “sanitized.” 

“We all know when we have a dirty house and someone’s coming over, we know they’re coming, we clean it up,” she said during a press conference outside the building. “And it looked like that.” 

Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, had been criticized by immigrant advocates for holding detainees in deplorable conditions. 

CapRadio reached out to ICE for comment, but did not hear back. In a previous statement to CapRadio, they denied allegations that the building had “abhorrent” conditions. 

Matsui argued that the constitution gives her the power to conduct unannounced inspections and that she hopes to do so in the near future. 

She said her efforts to intervene were inspired by reports from organizations like NorCal Resist — which works with detained immigrants and their families. The advocacy group has said some immigrants are being forced to sleep on the floor and not being provided with enough water. 

Gisele Garcia, a volunteer with NorCal Resist, said she and other volunteers who were present in the building during Matsui’s visit noticed differences in how agents presented themselves. 

“For the first time, we saw ICE agents in suits,” she highlighted. “And we saw other ICE and ERO [Enforcement Removal Operations] officers with IDs, name tags. Since May, they have refused to identify themselves. So they were very dressed up today.”

Garcia said she hopes elected officials continue to push for more oversight visits, but said the reality inside these buildings for detainees has been difficult. 

“Our volunteers who are there every day have witnessed banging and screaming coming from those facilities of people clearly in distress,” she said. “We're standing outside of the building doing court watch, checking people in to make sure they come out, and seeing family members who went with their loved ones come out alone and in tears.” 

Garcia also said ICE’s tracking system has added another hurdle for tracking where detainees go. On top of needing what’s known as a detainee’s ‘A Number’ — similar to a social security number — the system also requires their country of origin.

“We’re responding in an emergency situation, so we can’t always get every single detail [including] full name, birth date, country of origin and A Number, not because we don’t want to but because these officers are trying to get people away from us as we’re trying to collect information,” she explained.