Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez took no prisoners in shooting back at the Trump administration for the arrest of a Newark mayor while he was visiting an immigration detention facility earlier this week.
“You lay a finger on Representative Bonnie Watson Coleman or any of the representatives that were there, you lay a finger on them, and we’re going to have a problem,” the progressive congresswoman said in a fiery video uploaded to her Instagram account.
Her comments follow a scuffle that broke out outside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility in New Jersey on Friday in which Newark Mayor Ras Baraka was taken into custody while he and other Democratic Party officials, including House Reps. Watson Coleman and Robert Menendez, were attempting to carry out an inspection of the site.
With Baraka now charged with trespassing, a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson has warned further arrests may soon be on the way, claiming other Democratic officials present at the facility had “body-slammed” ICE personnel during the altercation.
House Rep. Watson Coleman, who is 80 years old, has dismissed the department’s claims as “ridiculous.” DHS pledges to release footage proving its claims, but it has yet to do so. Coleman said in a separate appearance on CNN that the statements show President Trump has normalized “lying” among White House officials.
Trump Border czar Tom Homan, meanwhile, said his officers will continue to arrest anyone who “cross[es] the line of impediment” while protesting outside ICE detention facilities, further accusing the Democratic Party of visiting the site as an act of political theatrics rather than out of genuine concern over reports of detainees being denied the right to due process.
“This isn’t about due process, this isn’t about constitutional rights, this is about politics,” he said in a Saturday interview with Fox News. “They simply don’t want to see these people removed from the country.”
Ocasio-Cortez’s video on Sunday nevertheless offered a sharp riposte to both Homan and Secretary for Homeland Security Kristi Noem—who has earned the nickname “ICE Barbie” for dolling up photo ops at ICE raids, among other bizarre publicity stunts—for their handling of the incident, accusing immigration officials of violating her party’s constitutionally enshrined right to legal oversight of departmental operations.
“If Kristi Noem wants to break the law, that’s on her,” the Democratic official said. “But it sure as hell is not someone like Representative Robert Menendez that needs to be arrested, okay?”
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