Warren Leads Massachusetts Delegation in Pressing DHS OIG to Investigate Inhumane Conditions at Burlington ICE Facility

“Congress and the public deserve immediate transparency about ICE’s practices and the secretive use of this Massachusetts building as an unmonitored detention site.” Text of Letter (PDF) Burlington, Mass. — U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) led the entire Massachusetts delegation in sending a letter to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Office of the Inspector General (DHS OIG) requesting an independent inspection of the Burlington ICE facility. Joining Senator Warren in sending the letter are Senator Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Representatives Richard Neal (D-Mass.), Lori Trahan (D-Mass.), Jake Auchincloss (D-Mass.), Katherine Clark (D-Mass.), Seth Moulton (D-Mass.), Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.), Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.), William Keating (D-Mass.), and James McGovern (D-Mass.). Over the past year, reports and evidence from advocates and attorneys show that ICE appears to have transformed the short-term administrative processing center into a de facto detention site—holding people for days and weeks in conditions that threaten their health, safety, and due process rights. The lawmakers wrote to ICE in June 2025 following alarming reports that ICE was detaining people for days at a time despite the Burlington facility not being designed for overnight detention. ICE denied that it was violating its policies and instead pointed to their own self-inspection completed in March 2025. Members of the Massachusetts delegation have continued to exercise their constitutional responsibilities, making unannounced visits and inspecting the facility. Most recently, on September 8, 2026, Senator Warren and Representative Trahan conducted an unannounced visit to the Burlington facility. “Days later, we learned via public reports that on the very same day that they visited, a federal judge ordered that ICE release a woman who had spent approximately four days at the facility. That woman, as described above, had recently miscarried and was denied adequate care during her multiday detention. Just one month prior, a 52-year-old woman was reportedly held at Burlington for 20 days,” the lawmakers wrote. “Congress and the public deserve immediate transparency about ICE’s practices and the secretive use of this Massachusetts building as an unmonitored detention site. Congress has tasked DHS OIG under the 2024 Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act to conduct unannounced inspections of ICE detention facilities—including field offices and holding facilities—to ensure compliance with detention standards. Accordingly, we request that the DHS OIG conduct an inspection of the ICE and ERO Boston Field Office, headquartered in Burlington, Massachusetts and share its findings with Congress,” the lawmakers concluded. Senator Warren has led the fight to hold the Trump administration accountable for its cruel immigration agenda: In September 2026, Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and U.S. Representative Lori Trahan (D-Mass.) released a statement following a congressional oversight visit to the Burlington ICE facility, where dozens of individuals have been detained. In August 2026, after raising ethics concerns about top U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) official David Venturella, a former senior executive at one of the nation’s largest private prison contractors, U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) released a new response disclosing key ethics commitments from Venturella, including divestment and recusal from certain cases involving his former company. In May 2026, Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) pressed the Acting Director-Designate for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), David Venturella, on his decades-long revolving door career between ICE and the private prison industry and his reported use of Department of Homeland Security (DHS) personnel and resources for personal or political favors. In May 2026, Senator Elizabeth Warren, Ranking Member of the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Personnel, released new answers from Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and the Department of Defense (DoD), revealing the Pentagon’s financial support for the Trump administration’s cruel immigration agenda is far higher than initially reported by DoD. In April 2026, Senator Elizabeth Warren pressed the Inspector General of Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to investigate Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) failure to provide accurate information about where detainees are being held. In April 2026, Senator Elizabeth Warren pressed the Inspectors General of the Departments of Homeland Security (DHS) and State to open an investigation into the Trump administration’s attempts to deport people to countries they have no ties to. In March 2026, Senator Elizabeth Warren led over 50 members of Congress in a new investigation into whether government contractors, real estate brokers, and property owners are corruptly profiting from the White House’s fast-tracked expansion of inhumane warehouse-based immigration detention facilities. In March 2026, Senator Elizabeth Warren released new data obtained from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) revealing that the Trump administration has attempted to deport hundreds of veterans and their family members after promising immigration protections at the time of recruitment. In February 2026, Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Chris Coons (D-Del.) introduced the ICE Accountability Act , a new bill that would create a new independent watchdog to enforce necessary reforms of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and rein in the agencies’ lawless actions. If established, the new independent watchdog would be the strongest of any federal oversight body. In February 2026, Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Ed Markey (D-Mass.), along with Representatives Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.), Lou Correa (D-Calif.), and Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.), led colleagues in pressing the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Office of Inspector General (OIG) to expedite its investigation into Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents’ use of force. The Congressional push follows violent ICE operations in Minneapolis that resulted in the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti last month, in addition to reports of ICE agents using increasingly aggressive tactics and entering homes without a warrant. In February 2026, Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Angela Alsobrooks (D-Md.), along with Representative Mike Quigley (D-Ill.), led over 55 colleagues in pressing Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on children’s exposure to ICE’s escalating violence in American communities, which threatens to leave them with lasting physical and psychological trauma. In February 2026, Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) questioned witnesses in a spotlight forum held by Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and U.S. Representative Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) on the violent tactics used by agents of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the lack of accountability following instances of misconduct. In December 2025, Senator Warren (D-Mass.) and Representative John Garamendi (D-Calif.) co-led the release of a new report , along with 11 other members of Congress, revealing the Trump administration diverted more than $2 billion of military funds and resources from the Pentagon to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for immigration enforcement and its impact on readiness and morale. The report also revealed that the diversion of funds was happening at the expense of updates to barracks, maintenance hangers, and military construction projects in the Pacific. In September 2025, Senator Elizabeth Warren led over 55 members of Congress in opening a new investigation into the Trump administration’s arrest, detention, and deportation of non-citizen service members, veterans, and military families. In September 2025, Senator Warren (D-Mass.) led more than 60 members of Congress in opening a new investigation into the Trump administration’s practice of detaining and sending immigrants to countries where they have no citizenship or connections of any kind. These deportations use the military to conduct the international deportation flights and detain noncitizens on U.S. military bases within the United States and overseas. In June 2025, Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Ed Markey (D-Mass.) led the entire Massachusetts Congressional delegation in writing to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Acting Director Todd Lyons and ICE ERO Boston Acting Field Office Director Patricia Hyde, pressing them on whether ICE has been violating agency standards by holding detainees in inhumane conditions at the Burlington ICE Facility. In June 2025, Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Ed Markey (D-Mass.) led Massachusetts’ Congressional delegation in pressing Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials on Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) increasingly aggressive and intimidating tactics used during enforcement actions. The lawmakers requested an immediate investigation by DHS’s Office of Inspector General and Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties (CRCL) and necessary corrective action. In February 2025, Senators Warren (D-Mass.) and Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) pressed Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth on the military’s deployment of active-duty forces to the southern border and Guantanamo and the Department of Defense’s (DOD) new involvement in immigration detention and deportation. ###