Trump administration homeland security officials were responsible for starting the confrontation on Friday at a New Jersey immigration jail that led to the arrest of Newark’s mayor as well as threats to detain three members of Congress, the representatives said Sunday on CNN’s State of the Union.
The Democratic representatives Bonnie Watson Coleman, LaMonica McIver and Rob Menendez – all of New Jersey – visited the controversial Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) detention center known as Delaney Hall on Friday to inspect the facility. As they waited to enter Delaney Hall, Newark’s mayor, Ras Baraka, arrived – and as he left the property, he was arrested outside by Ice officials accusing him of trespassing, leading to a commotion at the entrance of the jail.
There evidently was shoving and pushing between federal immigration officials and the members of Congress, which Watson Coleman, McIver and Menendez blamed on the immigration officials.
On CNN’s State of the Union, the Congress members said immigration officials had ample opportunity to deescalate the situation before someone called in and instructed masked agents to arrest Baraka.
“They created that confrontation, they created that chaos,” McIver said.
Since the ordeal on Friday at Delaney Hall, homeland security officials have accused the Congress members of staging a “bizarre political stunt” there while also accusing McIver of “bodyslamming” authorities at the scene.
McIver rejected those allegations.
“I honestly do not know how to bodyslam anyone,” McIver said. “There’s no video that supports me bodyslamming anyone.
“We were simply there to do our job – there for an oversight visit.”
For their part, officials have threatened to arrest the three members of Congress in connection with Friday’s commotion at Delaney Hall. Watson Coleman told CNN on Sunday that those threats stemmed from the Trump administration’s “determination to intimidate people in this country”.
The Delaney Hall facility was recently reopened by Ice, as the agency continues to expand its detention network to assist in the Trump administration’s aspirations to carry out mass deportations. The facility operator says it has the capacity to detain 1,000 people.
Delaney Hall is owned by Geo Group, a massive, private prison company with Ice facilities throughout the US. The Trump administration in February gave a 15-year contract worth $1bn to Geo Group to operate Delaney Hall.
However, the new contract comes amid legal challenges to Ice detention in New Jersey. Newark’s municipal government recently filed a lawsuit against Geo Group claiming that the company did not have the proper permits to operate the facility.
There is also a separate legal battle playing out in a federal appellate court related to private immigration detention in the state. In 2021, Phil Murphy, the New Jersey governor, signed a law barring immigration detention in the state. Another private prison company, CoreCivic, which runs the only other immigration jail in the state, sued New Jersey’s state government.
CoreCivic received support from the Biden administration in its suit, and a federal judge ruled in favor of the company. The state challenged the federal judge’s decision, and a federal appellate court heard arguments for the case only recently.
