Rep. Madeleine Dean visits Philadelphia ICE facility as fight over DHS funding drags on

As Congress spends a two-week break no closer to a compromise on Homeland Security funding, U.S. Rep. Madeleine Dean visited the federal detention facility in Center City Tuesday to do some research on the agency at the center of the fight.

ICE agents have been paid throughout the 46-day shutdown, but most other employees of agencies overseen by the the Department of Homeland Security have gone without pay for the duration.

But Dean (D., Montgomery) discovered Tuesday that the pay disparity also existed within ICE itself.

“What I learned there is something I did not fully understand. We all know about TSA not getting paid. But did you know the support staff (for ICE and other agencies) has not been paid?” Dean said.

“The support staff is often the backbone of any organization and it’s just completely unthinkable, unconscionable — I think it should be illegal — that these folks are not being paid.”

The four-term lawmaker’s visit came more than six weeks into the Department of Homeland Security shutdown and just days after Congress left Washington for a two-week break without a solution.

Democrats have remained steadfast in opposing any new funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement without reforms to the agency’s tactics, following two fatal shootings of civilians in Minneapolis by federal agents in January.

Many Republicans have bristled at Democrats’ proposals to ban masking by agents and other reforms. And House GOP leaders have refused to consider a larger DHS budget without the ICE funding.

Dean said her trip to the Philadelphia Federal Detention Center, which she said had 52 immigrant detainees Tuesday morning, was designed for her to learn both about the shutdown’s impacts and the operations of a facility that only began holding immigrants in ICE custody last year.

She said the pay disparity — support staff not being paid while law enforcement officers continue to be paid to do enforcement work — struck her as unfair, particularly with funding available through President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act and after Trump authorized payment for Transportation Security Administration workers.

Trump approved the TSA payments last week as unpaid employees increasingly called out of work, disrupting airport operations and leading to ICE agents being deployed to pick up some of their duties.

Dean said the decisions made about who to pay and not pay, along with House Republicans’ move last week to reject a compromise plan proposed by the Senate, were “an utter failure to govern.”

Spokespeople for DHS and ICE did not respond to questions from the Inquirer about which types of federal employees are receiving paychecks during the budget impasse.

While the Trump administration has occasionally blocked members of Congress — including two from Pennsylvania last year — from entering ICE detention facilities, Dean said she did not have a problem getting access on Tuesday. However, she criticized the current policy that requires a week’s notice.

Democratic lawmakers have fought in court against the advance-notice policies. The policies have been used, for instance, to block lawmakers looking to visit a facility in Minneapolis after an ICE officer killed U.S. citizen Renee Good, sparking a wave of public backlash. The arrest of nine religious leaders protesting the Philadelphia detention center on Monday was part of a series of protests after the events in Minneapolis.

“We should have been able to walk right in,” Dean said after giving notice for her Tuesday visit. “We have a responsibility as the appropriators to take a look at these places without any prior approval.”

Dean described the staff at the Philadelphia facility as cooperative even as they did not answer all of her questions, and declined to let her speak with any of the immigrants who were detained there Tuesday morning.

The questions she said she entered with — about how long the detainees had been there, and if they had criminal records beyond their immigration status — were left unanswered.

Dean said she also did not get clarity on how many came from her district, which covers most of Montgomery County and part of Berks County, or about the circumstances around the death of a detainee in January. That detainee, 46-year-old Parady La, was a Cambodian immigrant who ICE said was treated for drug withdrawal and died after being transferred to Thomas Jefferson University Hospital.

La’s family and groups including the ACLU of Pennsylvania have sought more information. Dean said Tuesday she was unable to learn anything more after speaking with the staff.

Dean described the conditions at the facility, which also still operates as a federal jail, as “heavy-duty, serious prison” — similar but also different from a much larger detention facility in Texas that she visited earlier in March.

The facility in Dilley, Texas, holds up to 2,400 people, and Dean has highlighted it as a cautionary exhibit of what could be coming if the Trump administration succeeds in its plans to turn two warehouses — in Berks and Schuylkill counties — into similarly large detention facilities.

“It was incredibly inhumane and grotesque,” Dean said. “We saw children whose medical needs were being neglected.”

Dean said she spoke to several detainees who had severe medical issues. An educational area set up for the detained children also appeared to be unused, she said.

“It was an absolute sham, a joke,” she said. “I’ll do everything in my power to get these centers shut down.”