On Sunday afternoon, New York Representatives Nydia Velazquez and Adriano Espaillat walked into 26 Federal Plaza, demanding to see the conditions on the building's 10th floor, where the federal government was holding immigrants arrested at court hearings. They'd heard reports from lawyers and advocates that more than 100 people were being detained there, and that cells meant to hold people for just a few hours were instead holding people for several days, and that the cells were hot and crowded, with people forced to sleep on bathroom floors. (Mahmoud Khalil also spent part of a night at 26 Federal Plaza, where he reported sleeping on the floor.)
This follows the arrest last month of Newark Mayor Ras Baraka when he tried to enter an ICE facility in New Jersey, the charging of New Jersey congressmember LaMonica McIver for attempting to enter the same facility, as well as a massive nationwide effort to arrest immigrants at their court dates. Velzaquez and Espaillat waited in the lobby of the federal building for an hour, before they were told by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement supervisor that the 10th floor was a "sensitive location" and that they wouldn't be allowed upstairs.
The two congressmembers then walked out of the building, having been denied their right to supervise federal detention facilities operated by the Department of Homeland Security.