Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said a US senator who was hit by a pepper ball at an immigration facility “probably shouldn’t have been there.”
Mullin, speaking during a Cabinet meeting at the White House on Wednesday, confirmed that Sen.
Kim said he was caught in a confrontation between protesters and federal agents while trying to de-escalate tensions outside the ICE facility, where agents used pepper spray and pepper balls to push crowds back. Protests have grown outside Delaney Hall as some detainees go on a hunger strike.
“What I witnessed and experienced today was shameful,” Kim wrote on X after the incident. “Delaney Hall is a failure; it’s this administration’s failure.”
The clash — the latest in a string of physical altercations between Democrats and immigration officials — comes as Republicans move to steer additional billions of dollars toward immigration enforcement agencies through a sweeping budget reconciliation package that would dramatically expand detention, deportation and border operations over the next several years.
A federal appeals court this month declined to block a lower court ruling allowing unannounced congressional visits to ICE detention centers, after lawmakers challenged the Department of Homeland Security’s policy requiring seven days’ notice before access.
In a separate May policy memo, ICE said congressional visits to facilities had surged from roughly 45 annually in the decade before fiscal 2025 to more than 160 visits in fiscal 2025 and about 200 visits so far in fiscal 2026 as of May 11.
Rep. Adelita Grijalva (D-Ariz.) said she was pepper-sprayed during an ICE raid in Tucson, Ariz., in December. Sen.
More lawmakers have visited Delaney Hall throughout this week.