New Campaign Demanding Congressional Oversight of Burlington ICE Facility
Photo: Jewish Activists For Immigration Justice
Coalition Releases New Toolkit Calling for Coordinated Announced and Unannounced Congressional Inspections
Source: immigration-justice-action-team@indivisible-ma.org
A statewide coalition of immigrant justice advocates, grassroots organizations, and community activists announced on May 28 the launch of the Burlington ICE Congressional Accountability Project, a coordinated campaign urging Members of Congress to conduct persistent oversight visits to the Burlington ICE Field Office and publicly report their findings.
The campaign is being organized by the Indivisible Mass Coalition Immigration Justice Action Team (IJAT) together with coalition partners across Massachusetts, including Bearing Witness New England, Justice4All, Jewish Activists for Immigration Justice (JAIJ) of Western Massachusetts, and additional advocacy groups. The coalition released a new Congressional Oversight of Burlington ICE Toolkit, designed to help constituents organize meetings with legislators, conduct coordinated outreach campaigns, and push for ongoing, unannounced inspections of the Burlington facility.
The Burlington ICE Field Office, intended as a short-term holding facility for New England, rather than a long-term detention center, is now the subject of mounting reports of overcrowding, lack of beds, inadequate medical care, poor food and sanitation, and barriers to legal access. Most critically, the facility continues to detain vulnerable populations, including pregnant women and minors.
Advocates are elevating their serious concerns about transparency, due process, and basic human rights protections at the site.
Since January 2025, hundreds of activists with Bearing Witness New England, Justice4All, and other community groups have held demonstrations and public education events outside the Burlington facility to demand transparency and accountability. Organized protests take place several times a week.
Conditions within ICE detention facilities have been gaining public attention with the growing De-ICE Citizens Bank campaign, which aims to press the regional Citizens Bank to stop financing for-profit prison companies, The GEO Group and CoreCivic, which operate ICE facilities in other parts of the country. Additionally, the world is now watching the Delaney House facility in Newark, New Jersey, where hundreds of detainees are conducting a hunger strike to protest intolerable conditions in a facility operated by The GEO Group.
See related: Bearing Witness to Immigrant Suffering at Burlington ICE (Amherst Indy)
Public attention here in Massachusetts intensified after Congressman Jim McGovern conducted an unannounced visit to the Burlington ICE facility on April 8, 2026. Coverage of the visit once again highlighted concerns about detainee conditions and ICE policies restricting congressional oversight.
Media coverage of Representative McGovern’s visit included:
- WCVB coverage of McGovern’s Burlington ICE visit
- Boston Globe reporting on congressional oversight concerns at Burlington ICE
Organizers say the current campaign seeks to move beyond symbolic statements and toward sustained, coordinated congressional oversight that is difficult for ICE to evade.
As Senator Chris Murphy reminded us all in January 2026, after being denied entry at the Dilley Detention Center: “Members of Congress have a constitutional right to inspect these facilities, and a clear statutory right as well … If they’re not letting members of Congress in with less than seven days’ notice, it tells you how much work they know they need to do to cover up and hide the things they don’t want us to see … The fact they denied me access even with 24 hours’ notice should make everybody deeply, deeply fearful of what is happening inside this facility and facilities like it.”
The coalition also points to ongoing legal battles over ICE’s attempts to restrict congressional oversight visits. As detailed in the Toolkit, federal courts in Neguse et al. v. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement repeatedly ruled that DHS policies limiting unannounced congressional inspections likely interfered with Congress’s Article I oversight authority. Persistent Congressional oversight is essential to transparency, democratic accountability, and the protection of human dignity.
The campaign is calling on Members of Congress to:
- conduct regular unannounced visits to the Burlington facility,
- coordinate inspections across the Massachusetts congressional delegation,
- speak privately with detainees and advocates,
- review ICE policies and detention data, and
- publicly report findings and obstacles to oversight.
The Campaign and Toolkit also launch district-based “ICE Accountability Teams,” designed to coordinate constituent outreach, meetings with legislators, follow-up advocacy, and public accountability efforts statewide.
The IMC Immigration Justice Action Team is a part of Indivisible Mass Coalition.