Newark Mayor Ras Baraka was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement Friday after gaining entry to Delaney Hall, which ICE opened as a detention facility this week against the city’s wishes.
Baraka and other city officials repeatedly tried to visit the facility this week to serve a representative of its operating company, Geo Group, over code violations, including refusing to grant access to the facility and failing to have an evacuation plan in place. They were denied entry.
On Friday, three Democratic members of Congress from New Jersey—Representatives Rob Menendez, Bonnie Watson Coleman, and LaMonica McIver—were admitted to tour the facility, and brought Baraka with them. After the mayor gained entry past the gate, the representatives tried to include Baraka in conversations. At least one of them was shoved by agents, and Baraka was subsequently arrested.
Video shared w/ @Axios of the moment Newark Mayor Ras Baraka was arrested: https://t.co/Spvhs7LygX pic.twitter.com/AEUXmmSmbk
— Andrew Solender (@AndrewSolender) May 9, 2025
The acting U.S. attorney for New Jersey and Donald Trump’s former lawyer, Alina Habba, announced the arrest on X, saying that 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.”
Baraka is currently running in the Democratic primary for governor of New Jersey, and in April, the city of Newark filed a lawsuit against the opening of Delaney Hall, seeking to allow the facility to be inspected. Currently, a federal judge is considering whether to block the opening of the facility, and it’s unclear whether anyone is being held there right now.
Coleman said that she and her colleagues, as well as Baraka, were assaulted by guards.
“What we experienced was the weaponization, is the abuse of power…. They know who we are…. they manhandled us, and arrested the mayor,” Coleman said, adding that “if they can treat members of Congress like that imagine how they treat people on the streets.”
It’s the first arrest of a sitting U.S. mayor by the Trump administration over immigration. Last month, the FBI arrested a judge in Milwaukee for allegedly “obstructing an immigration operation.”
This story has been updated.
The post ICE Arrests Democratic Mayor Trying to Check on Detention Facility appeared first on New Republic.
