Nevada’s Horsford tours immigration facility after previous denial

Congressman Steven Horsford, D-Nev., campaigns during an early voting rally at Cheyenne High School in North Las Vegas Tuesday, Nov. 1, 2022. Photo by: Steve Marcus

U.S. Rep. Steven Horsford, D-Nev., today toured the Nevada Southern Detention Center in Pahrump, writing in a statement that detainees described unreliable access to legal and medical resources.

They also detailed being “moved across state lines in the dead of night without advance notice or understanding of where they were going,” Horsford said.

Last month, the representative said he was denied entry into the detention center, one of two Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities in Southern Nevada.

“The Constitution is clear, and so are our laws – Congressional oversight is never optional,” Horsford said. “Based on conversations I had with detainees today, I’m also concerned that (the Department of Homeland Security) used the past three weeks to make improvements before I arrived.”

As of Aug. 4, 350 people are detained at the facility, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse.

Horsford today also sent a letter requesting an investigation into the Department of Homeland Security’s previous noncompliance to the House of Representatives’ Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security.

Horsford asked that the committee consider “corrective actions,” such as conditioning the money Congress sends in the future to ensure that the detention center is fully adhering to congressional oversight.

In the letter, Horsford said his team made “advance efforts to coordinate the (first) visit” but were not given “any legitimate reason for the denial” and were labeled as “security risks.” Staff at the detention center also called law enforcement on Horsford, he said.

The letter was addressed to the subcommittee’s chair — Rep. Mark Amodei, R-Nev. — and ranking member Rep. Lauren Underwood, D-Ill.

“What I saw today underscores the importance of Congressional oversight,” Horsford said in a statement. “It speaks to why administration officials must honor our Constitution, and why Members of Congress must fight to protect our authority.”

Members of the Nevada Latino Legislative Caucus visited the same detention facility in early July, raising alarm about misleading legal advice from ICE agents.