Newark Mayor Las Baraka said he was arrested outside the ice facility after joining council members on an hour-long tour within Gates.
Newark Mayor Las Baraka has been arrested outside the ice detention facility
Rus Baraka, mayor of Newark, New Jersey and Democratic candidate for governor, was reportedly arrested outside the recently opened immigration detention center.
- A DHS spokesperson said the authorities “in fact there are body camera footage of these members of Congress and are assaulting these ice enforcers.”
- “We went into the facility and came back to talk to the mayor, and then the ice agents started pushing us,” Senator Bonnie Watson-Coleman told social media.
- “I didn’t break the law,” Baraka told CNN.
WASHINGTON – The Department of Homeland Security is actively investigating Democrats involved in conflict with officials at ICE facilities in New Jersey, confirmed spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin.
Three New Jersey Democrats — Senators Bonnie Watson Coleman, Lamonica McQuiver and Rob Menendez — confronted DHS security guards outside the Delaney Hall detention center on May 9, shortly after officers moved to arrest Newark Mayor Russ Barraka, according to CNN.
Baraka was said to have been trying to enter the facility, but the mayor later said he was arrested after he left.
The law allows members of the Congress to visit unpublished immigration detention facilities. Watson Coleman, McQuiver and Menendez were not arrested, said Ned Cooper, a spokesman for Watson Coleman. Three members of the council were visiting the facility without notice.
McLaughlin told CNN on Saturday that the department was “actively investigating” lawmakers and that the arrests were “undetected on the table.”
“We actually have body camera footage of these members of Congress assaulting these ice enforcers, including bodies that smack women ice personnel,” she insisted.
However, Watson Coleman said in X’s post that the ice agent “physically shoved her in.”
“We went into the facility and came back to talk to the mayor and the ice agent started pushing us,” she said.
Baraka told CNN he was charged with federal trespassing, a misdemeanor he called “humiliation.” He said that since council members were inside the facility, he was inside the facility’s gates for more than an hour. Agents arrested him outside the gate after he left, he said.
“I didn’t go there to break the law. I didn’t break the law,” Baraka told CNN on Friday. “I was there as mayor of the city and exercised my rights and duties as an elected official. What you know is that our lawmakers are preparing for the press conference that was supposed to happen there.”
contribution: Ricardo Cowresser and Eduardo QuebusUSA TODAY