The Trump administration warned three Democratic lawmakers Saturday that arrests are “on the table” after they participated in a protest at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Newark, where the city’s Mayor Ras Baraka was collared.
“There will likely be more arrests coming. We actually have body camera footage of some of these members of Congress assaulting our ICE enforcement officers, including body slamming a female ICE officer. So we will be showing that to viewers very shortly,” Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin told CNN Saturday morning.
“This is an ongoing investigation, and that is definitely on the table.”
New Jersey Reps. Bonnie Watson Coleman, Rob Menendez and LaMonica McIver joined fellow Democrat Baraka — the frontrunner in the Garden State’s gubernatorial race — Friday at ICE facility Delaney Hall, which is owned by GEO Group and which they are seeking to shutter after it opened Tuesday.
The state’s US Attorney Alina Habba on Friday confirmed Baraka’s arrest, saying he “committed trespass and ignored multiple warnings from Homeland Security Investigations to remove himself from the ICE detention center in Newark, New Jersey this afternoon.
“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,” she added on X.
However, Baraka on Saturday blamed DHS for his arrest, claiming the agency “escalated” the incident.
“The reality is Alina Habba wasn’t there; the US attorney wasn’t there. She doesn’t know what happened,” he said.
“Clearly, that is not the context of what happened. I was there for over an hour in that space, and nobody ever told me to move … not a single person, not an officer from ICE, not any of the security guards, nobody told me to leave that place,” Baraka insisted.
“Somebody from Homeland Security came in the end and began to escalate the situation, and we wind up being where we are today, and that’s, frankly, the extent of it,” he added.
The mayor was released from custody Friday night.
Video posted to X earlier that day showed him being walked in handcuffs by Homeland Security Investigations officers.
“I didn’t go there to break any laws. I didn’t break any laws,” Baraka stated earlier Saturday.
Newark City Councilmember Kenyatta Stewart agrees with the mayor’s characterization of the visit to Delaney Hall.
“They invited him in. A Geo security guard actually opened the door for him,” Stewart told The Post. “Then, as we were waiting for the congressman, they asked him to leave, and he did, and they arrested him outside the gate.”
Members of Congress are legally permitted to visit any ICE facility through their oversight authority, but those rights do not pertain to Baraka.
On Tuesday, he showed up with picketers and a bulldozer to attempt to prevent the opening of the ICE facility, which was previously a migrant detention center under the Obama administration.
Baraka has claimed that the prison is operating illegally, claims which the facility’s owner Geo Group has denied.
Earlier Saturday, roughly 100 rowdy demonstrators congregated in Foley Square in Lower Manhattan to protest Mayor Baraka’s arrest at an organized event attended by mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani and Public Advocate Jumaane Williams.
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