One of the House Democrats from New Jersey under investigation by Kristi Noem’s Department of Homeland Security has slammed the government’s arrest of Newark’s mayor as “un-American.”
House Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman told CNN’s State of the Union that Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s arrest of Mayor Ras Baraka is what led tensions to explode as she and two other House Democrats attempted to tour an ICE detention facility.
DHS has said Coleman and the other House Oversight Democrats—Reps. Robert Menendez and LaMonica McIver, also from New Jersey—were under investigation for allegedly “assaulting” ICE agents and may be arrested.
“Chaos ensued when someone on the phone above the leaders of ICE who were with us at that facility instructed them to go out of the facility, go to the private property and lock the mayor of the largest city in the state of New Jersey up,” Coleman said alongside Menendez and McIver. “That’s absurd. That’s un-American. That’s scary. That’s determination to intimidate people in this country.”
The threat of arrests came as the Trump administration has targeted perceived opponents of its political agenda with various forms of retribution, whether through executive orders focused on law firms, investigations into news organizations, or arrests of public officials it claims impede its law enforcement duties, including the Newark mayor and a Wisconsin judge.
Baraka was arrested on Friday after he tried to enter the detention facility to see whether it had violated safety codes. New Jersey’s interim U.S. Attorney Alina Habba claimed Baraka “committed trespass,” though Baraka said he was arrested on a public street outside of the facility.
DHS also claimed the lawmakers “stormed” and “broke into” the detention facility and assaulted ICE officers, though McIver disputed DHS’ assertion that she was seen “body-slamming” an ICE officer.
“I honestly do not know how to body slam anyone. There’s no video that supports me body slamming anyone,” McIver said in the Sunday interview. “We were simply there to do our job, therefore oversight visit, and what you’re watching in a video when you don’t have all of the body camera— and we hope that all of the body cam is released—it was a very tense situation. It unfortunately did not have to be like that. They created that confrontation. They created that chaos.”
Camera-ready Noem has earned the moniker “ICE Barbie” for her love of bizarre publicity stunts at ICE raids or at detention centers.
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