Newark, New Jersey mayor Ras Baraka was arrested outside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in Elizabeth on Friday as the mayor and members of Congress joined demonstrations demanding answers from Donald Trump’s administration about the conditions inside, marking a major escalation of immigration protests surrounding the facility.
Videos from outside the facility shows a chaotic scene with masked federal officers pushing against a crowd in the detention center’s parking lot as Baraka is shoved towards the building and then placed in handcuffs.
New Jersey’s interim U.S. Attorney Alina Habba — Trump’s personal attorney — accused the mayor of trespassing and ignoring warnings from federal law enforcement agents to leave.
“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,” Habba wrote.
Lawmakers gathered in Newark on Friday to demand answers from ICE following the opening of the private, for-profit facility that can detain more than 1,000 people.
In February, ICE agency awarded GEO Group a 15-year, $1 billion contract to hold immigrants facing deportation inside the two-story facility known as Delaney Hall.
The building is near Newark Liberty International Airport, which has been used by the federal government to stage removal flights.
Baraka, a Democratic candidate for the state’s governor, has vowed to join daily demonstrations outside the facility until city officials are allowed inside to inspect its conditions. He said government officials did not obtain necessary permits to jail immigrants there, and the city of Newark filed a lawsuit against the administration last month in a last-ditch attempt to prevent its opening. The facility opened May 1.
Speaking on Fox News immediately following Baraka’s arrest, Habba refused to say where he is being detained.
“We will not stand for anyone getting in the way and getting rid of criminals in this country,” Habba said. “It’s very simple. Unfortunately, the mayor has publicly for three days been saying he will break in and eventually did break in and was given multiple opportunities to remove himself and failed to do so and has been detained and will be charged.”
Three House members from New Jersey were allowed inside the facility on Friday, and Baraka was initially allowed into the fenced parking lot area before officers told him to leave and threatened him with arrest. A heated argument appeared to break out after agents blocked his entry and continued even after Baraka returned to the other side of the gates.
In video from the scene, masked federal officers can be seen shoving back protesters and grabbing Democratic U.S. Rep. LaMonica McIver past a fence into the facility as Baraka is moved towards the center. Agents appeared to swarm him and others as they blocked protesters from the fence.
McIver said she and Democratic Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman were “assaulted” and fellow New Jersey Rep. Robert Menendez Jr. was “roughed up” after what was supposed to be an “oversight visit.” Menendez called what happened to McIver an “assault.”
“What we just witnessed was disgusting,” McIver said outside the facility. “If they can treat three members of Congress like that, just imagine how they can treat people on the street each and every day.”
Watson Coleman said lawmakers had traveled to the facility to see the conditions.
“We don’t know if everyone belongs there, and but we knew that people are OK, it’s safe, they’re feeding them,” she told reporters. “ICE is out of control. ICE thinks it can intimidate all of us. And it cannot intimidate any of us. And we the people will make sure that this administration adheres to the rules that separate us from dictatorships and other third world countries.”
Homeland Security assistant secretary Tricia McLaughlin claimed Reps. Coleman and Robert Menendez Jr. “stormed the gate and broke into the detention facility” with “multiple protesters.”
“This illegal breaking and entering of a detention facility puts the safety of our law enforcement agents and the detainees at risk,” she said in a statement.
Watson Coleman’s office said McLaughlin’s claims that lawmakers “stormed” the facility is “factually inaccurate.”
“No sitting mayor of an American city should be arrested for trying to inspect an immigration facility in their jurisdiction,” New York Immigration Coalition president Murad Awawdeh said in a statement, calling the arrest a “reckless and irresponsible action.”
The incident follows intense scrutiny from Democratic members of Congress and opposition from civil rights groups and demonstrators across the country against the president’s anti-immigration agenda, which is seeking to swiftly deport tens of thousands of immigrants from the country housed in massive detention centers.
The Independent has requested comment from a spokesperson for Baraka.
Additional reporting from Justin Baragona
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