The mayor of Newark, Ras Baraka, was arrested for trespass at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) detention center in New Jersey on Friday as Democratic members of Congress also attempted to conduct what they say was a visit to the controversial facility to conduct “federal oversight”.
News of Baraka’s arrest at Delaney Hall was reported on X by Alina Habba, the acting US attorney for the district of New Jersey, and a former personal attorney and adviser to Donald Trump.
“The Mayor of Newark, Ras Baraka, committed trespass and ignored multiple warnings from Homeland Security Investigations to remove himself from the ICE detention center in Newark, New Jersey this afternoon,” Habba wrote.
“He has willingly chosen to disregard the law. That will not stand in this state. He has been taken into custody. No one is above the law.”
Kabir Moss, spokesperson for the Baraka for Governor campaign, said in a statement that he was taken to a Customs and Border Protection (CBP) office a few miles from the facility and remained in detention. Baraka is currently running for the Democratic nomination as New Jersey’s governor in a competitive race. The primary is scheduled for next month.
“We are actively monitoring and will provide more details as they become available,” Moss said.
The New Jersey Globe published a photograph of him being led away in handcuffs by officers in jackets marked “Police Ice”. The newspaper does not have a reporter at the scene, but said observers at Delaney Hall said there had been “a scuffle”.
Baraka, who spoke out against Trump’s immigration policies in January after an immigration raid in Newark he said Ice agents conducted without a warrant, was at Delaney Hall with Democratic New Jersey Congress members Bonnie Watson Coleman, LaMonica McIver and Rob Menendez.
The politicians have accused the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) of reopening the detention facility, in contravention of local ordinances and without the necessary permits.
It is the largest such facility in the north-eastern US, and was the first to open after Trump’s second term of office began in January, according to the Ice website.
Coleman, in a tweet, said the visit was an attempt to establish conditions inside. “We’ve heard stories of what it’s like in other Ice prisons. We’re exercising our oversight authority to see for ourselves,” she wrote.
Coleman also told reporters at a press conference outside the facility that the lawmakers had traveled to the facility to see the conditions, according to the Independent.
“Ice is out of control,” she said. “Ice thinks it can intimidate all of us. And it cannot intimidate any of us. And we the people will make sure that this administration adheres to the rules that separate us from dictatorships and other third world countries.”
Menendez accused Ice agents of having “put their hands on” representatives Coleman and McIver, reported the New York Times. “They feel no restraint on what they should be doing, and that was shown in broad daylight today,” Menendez said at the news conference.
Axios reports that Coleman’s office said that they “arrived at Delaney Hall today at about 1pm to exercise their oversight authority as prescribed by law. After a period of explaining the law to the officials at the site they were escorted in.”
Video attached to the tweet shows the Congress members inside the grounds of the center talking to employees. Other clips show them being threatened with arrest for trespass by uniformed officials.
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