Congress members say they were denied entry to San Diego federal building to check on alleged basement detainees

Representatives Juan Vargas and Scott Peters said they were denied entry to the Edward J. Schwartz Federal building Monday morning, as they were trying to check in on migrants allegedly being held in the basement of the building.

“We came here as members of Congress under our oversight responsibilities under the Constitution to see what was going on here," Vargas said, who represents California's 51st Congressional district.

Under the law, members of Congress can do oversight visits to facilities, but Peters and Vargas said they were denied access, despite giving about 48 hours notice ahead of their visit.

“The chief said we are not allowed down there, we demanded then to go and see the basement and he refused, now to me, that goes against the law," Vargas added. “We had reports to our office that a number of people had been detained and held in the basement of the building far beyond any of the standards that are humane."

“They wouldn’t even answer questions about how many people are there, what the capacity is," Representative Scott Peters said, who represents the 52nd congressional district.

Pedro Rios with the American Friends Service Committee said he alerted the representatives of the alleged conditions where people are being held for immigration enforcement.

“There were people that were detained here that were telling their attorneys that there were over 200 people at times, that they were being moved around, there wasn’t information about them being posted on the online server that’s supposed to have that information, there’s family members who could not find their loved ones some of them were being detained here for over 24 hours," Rios said.

This comes after 12 Democratic Congress members filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration this summer after being denied access to ICE facilities in states including Texas, Colorado and New York.

Representative Peters said earlier this year in July, he had no trouble getting into the Otay Mesa Detention Facility, and reported that those detained were being properly treated, but now he said the rules of entry have changed.

“It makes me suspicious and I don’t want to be suspicious, I want to believe that they are complying with the law," Peters added.

Both representatives said they will be trying again and giving more advanced notice.