Two members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC) were asked to leave a meeting between lawmakers and the country's top immigration enforcement official Thursday.
Reps. Luis Gutiérrez (D-Ill.) and Norma Torres (D-Calif.) were asked to leave the room, while several other members of the CHC were not allowed into the meeting with Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) acting Director Tom Homan.
The meeting was originally scheduled for Tuesday, but ICE canceled, saying too many attendants had signed up. ICE then coordinated with House leadership, setting up a bipartisan meeting with a limited guest list.
Several Democrats, including House and CHC leadership, did attend the meeting.
Gutiérrez was the first to be asked to leave. Outside the room, he met Reps. Grace Napolitano (D-Calif.) and Juan Vargas (D-Calif.), who had not been allowed in.
"I was expecting to get let in. We're the ones who were asking for this meeting, now we've been barred from the meeting," said Vargas. "I want to know what they're doing, and now we've been barred from this meeting that we called for."
Vargas, a former member of the Jesuit order, then led a prayer with Gutiérrez and Napolitano. Rep. Lou Correa (D-Calif.) arrived and joined the prayer circle.
Gutiérrez said Speaker Paul Ryan's (R-Wis.) spokeswoman had asked him to leave the room. Ryan was not at the meeting.
"It was the Speaker's staff that came to me, and I know her very, very well, and she said she was speaking on behalf of the Speaker, that there were a limited number of seats," Gutiérrez said.
Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) asked Torres to leave after Gutiérrez had been ejected. She asked him to reconsider given the importance of immigration issues to her community, but he declined. She left visibly upset, a Democratic aide said.
"I was asked to leave, and I was told that if we would like to have a meeting with ICE, that we need to go with the leadership of the majority party here and ask them to schedule a meeting and ask them to schedule a meeting for us with ICE," Torres told her colleagues waiting outside the room, who were also joined by Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.).
Rep. Tony Cárdenas (D-Calif.) said later: "Oh my God! That room is big enough. They have not filled it to capacity."
Several Democrats remained in the meeting: House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.), Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (Md.), and CHC members Michelle Lujan Grisham (N.M.), the caucus chairwoman, Joaquín Castro (Texas), Lucille Roybal-Allard (Calif.) and Linda Sánchez (D-Calif.). Reps. Nita Lowey (N.Y.), Bennie Thompson (Miss.), and John Conyers (Mich.) were also in attendance.
Republicans sent Goodlatte and Reps. Raúl Labrador (Idaho), John Carter (Texas), David Valadao (Calif.) and Michael McCaul (Texas).
Inside the meeting, Democrats complained about the closed-door policy.
“I've never been in a meeting where an agency can designate who can attend,” said Pelosi, according to an aide.