A car chase involving Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents ended in a crash in Newark on Wednesday morning, the city’s mayor said, leaving several people, including three children, injured.
ICE agents were trying to apprehend a man driving a van when the crash happened, the mayor, Ras Baraka, said. The man fled, and during the chase his van hit two other vehicles, including one containing a 12-year-old and two 15-year-olds, who the mayor said were siblings.
The children were taken to a nearby hospital, and Mr. Baraka told reporters at an event in Newark on Wednesday night that the children were “doing OK.”
The episode occurred amid growing criticism that ICE tactics are too aggressive and have had fatal consequences, including the recent shooting deaths of two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis.
Hours after the crash, Mr. Baraka signed an executive order — one that his spokesman said had been in the works for weeks — to document and limit immigration enforcement in Newark.
“Federal authorities should adhere to local laws regarding vehicle pursuits and exercise common sense,” Mr. Baraka said in a statement. “Based on the damage they are inflicting on our communities, ICE has no business engaging in chases at any time, anywhere — but especially in densely populated areas, and on roads still being cleared from a significant snowstorm.”
ICE and the Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to messages seeking information, and it was not immediately clear whether immigration agents had arrested the driver.
Newark police were called to the scene of the crash, but did not take part in immigration enforcement activities, the mayor said. He said the children had been in a for-hire vehicle on their way to school when the car was struck. The city, Mr. Baraka said, would help their family take legal action against ICE if they choose to.
“We are going to aid the mother of the children who were hurt on the scene to push her to take further legal action as well,” Mr. Baraka told reporters at an event honoring the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. at Newark Symphony Hall on Wednesday night. He said the city would also provide information on the case to the New Jersey attorney general.
At the event, Mr. Baraka also signed the executive order requiring city employees to report any wrongdoing or unconstitutional ICE activity on city property. The order empowers city employees to observe federal agents at a safe distance, and it requires them to document any violations of city, state or federal laws and report it to their superiors.
It also restricts the city’s law enforcement agencies from cooperating in “civil immigration enforcement activities” without a warrant or judicial order.
Mr. Baraka was arrested by ICE on a trespassing charge last May at Delaney Hall, an immigrant detention center in Newark. The charge was dismissed less than two weeks later.
Representative LaMonica McIver, Democrat of New Jersey, was also arrested at Delaney Hall in May and faces charges that she impeded federal officers. She said that Wednesday’s crash was yet more evidence that ICE was hurting people in local communities.
“What happened in Newark today is not an isolated event — it is a part of a steady drumbeat of harm ICE is doing right here in New Jersey and around this country,” she said in a statement.
Ms. McIver, who grew up and lives in Newark, sits on the House Committee on Homeland Security, which oversees ICE.
David Waldstein is a Times reporter who writes about the New York region, with an emphasis on sports.
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