Will his fellow congressmen follow suit?
by Philip Eil, Rhode Island Current
U.S. Rep. Seth Magaziner paid an unannounced visit to Rhode Island’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention facility this week. On Tuesday afternoon, he issued a statement after inspecting the Donald W. Wyatt Detention Facility, in Central Falls, which holds detainees for the U.S. Marshals Service as well as ICE. It reads, in part:
“As with other inspections I have conducted of ICE and Border Patrol detention facilities, my focus was on assessing the condition of the facility and the ability of detainees to have basic needs met including access to legal counsel, due process, medical services, and nutrition.”
The statement is conspicuously light on details. It makes no mention of what Magaziner saw while inside the facility, or whether the basic needs of the ICE detainees held there are, in fact, being met. (As of the last publicly-disclosed head count in November, there were 110 ICE detainees there, and the population remained over 100 throughout 2025.)
Still, the visit made Magaziner a leader among Rhode Island’s congressional delegation. Members of Congress have statutory authority to make unannounced inspections at ICE facilities. But, though ICE has dominated headlines during Trump’s second term for all manner of scandals and abuses, and although the Wyatt has remained in steady use by the agency, Magaziner appears to be the first among our state’s four delegates to inspect the facility during Trump’s second term.
So I reached out to the other three to see what their plans were. Here’s what the responses were:
A spokesperson for U.S. Rep. Gabe Amo said he plans to visit “soon,” though she did not specify when.
A spokesperson for U.S. Sen. Jack Reed said Reed “has visited Wyatt and other similar facilities in other states before and plans to visit Wyatt again.” He did not specify when Reed had last visited Wyatt.
A spokesperson for U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse said Whitehouse “has visited Wyatt in the past and will likely do so again.” She confirmed that he had not visited during Trump’s second term.
The apparent lukewarm commitment toward seeing our local ICE facility during Trump’s second term contrasts the urgency shown by members of Congress for other states, including California, Colorado, Illinois, New York, Massachusetts, Michigan, and Washington. Just days before Magaziner’s visit to the Wyatt, Democratic U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland described what he saw during a surprise visit to an ICE field facility in Baltimore: “60 men packed into a room shoulder-to-shoulder, 24-hours-a-day, with a single toilet in the room and no shower facilities” and detainees “sleep[ing] like sardines with aluminum foil blankets.” Raskin called the conditions“disgraceful.”
U.S. Rep. Veronica Escobar, a Texas Democrat whose district includes El Paso has visited her local facility six times.
Last June, more than 30 congresspeople co-sponsored a House Resolution encouraging their counterparts to visit ICE facilities in their states. A month later, after several high-profile instances where congresspeople were denied access to facilities, 12 sued the Trump administration to ensure their legally required access to detention centers. U.S. Rep. Jimmy Gomez, a California Democrat, said at the time, “This lawsuit is our message: We as Members of Congress will do our job, and we will not let these agencies operate in the shadows.”
Rhode Island’s congressmen have been outspoken in their concern about ICE activities. Magaziner called ICE’s actions “completely unacceptable.” Amo said ICE has sown “cruelty and chaos.” Reed called it “an unchecked agency that appears to believe it is above the law, randomly detains American citizens, and incites rather than protects.” Whitehouse has said the agency is “increasingly acting outside the realm of accountability and undermining what’s left of public trust.”
So it’s befuddling why they’d be so slow to inspect what this agency is up to right here in the Ocean State. (This week, when the House and Senate are not in session, would be a good time.)
Certainly ICE hasn’t earned any benefit of the doubt. In 2025, 32 people died in ICE custody — the agency’s deadliest year of detention in two decades. And since the start of 2026, detainees have been dying at the unconscionable rate of one per week.
And the Wyatt specifically hardly boasts a stellar track record. The 2008 death of ICE detainee Hiu Lui “Jason” Ng in Wyatt custody prompted national shock and outrage. Soon after Ng’s death, a Wyatt administrator infamously told the Providence Journal, “Frankly, I’m looking at it like I’m running a Motel 6. I don’t care if it’s Guantanamo Bay. We want to fill the beds.” A recent report from the community organization AMOR found that issues with hunger, medical neglect, exorbitant fees, and arbitrary punishment persist at Wyatt.
Let’s hope that Magaziner’s visit prompts his three Rhode Island colleagues to follow suit. I don’t think it’s unreasonable that, given the size of Rhode Island and how dangerous ICE has become, oversight visits can become a regular thing. If they’re as concerned about ICE as they claim to be, they would already be doing this.
Rhode Islanders deserve to know what’s happening with our tax dollars and in our name behind razor wire in Central Falls. While most Rhode Islanders can only protest or pray outside of the Wyatt’s gates, or visit the facility according to stringent rules, our members of Congress have the power to walk in unannounced and report what they see.
This power doesn’t require a congressional majority of Democrats or a Democrat in the White House. They have it right now.
It’s time to use it.
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