Mayor Ras Baraka of Newark speaks to the press close to ICE brokers at an indication exterior an immigrant detention centre in Elizabeth, New Jersey Could 7, 2025.
Timothy A. Clary | AFP | Getty Photos
Newark Mayor Ras Baraka was arrested Friday for allegedly trespassing at a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention middle in his metropolis, New Jersey’s high federal prosecutor mentioned.
Baraka, a Democrat operating for governor, was led away in handcuffs after demanding to be let by way of a safety gate the place a bunch of protesters and U.S. Home Democrats from New Jersey had gathered.
Interim U.S. Legal professional for New Jersey Alina Habba mentioned Baraka “dedicated trespass and ignored a number of warnings” from Division of Homeland Safety officers who advised him to go away the ability.
“He has willingly chosen to ignore the regulation. That won’t stand on this state. He has been taken into custody,” Habba, a former protection legal professional for President Donald Trump, wrote on X.
However Rep. LaMonica McIver, D-N.J., who witnessed the arrest, countered that the mayor “did nothing incorrect.”
Baraka went contained in the gate on the ICE facility, often known as Delaney Corridor, and advised officers that “he was ready for us to return out as a result of we had been conducting an oversight go to,” McIver mentioned in remarks to reporters after the incident.
“They requested him to go away. He left, out of the gate,” the lawmaker mentioned.
ICE officers “then got here out to have a huddle” and determined that Baraka “must be arrested nonetheless as a result of he was inside,” McIver mentioned.
They then arrested the mayor “who had already left off of their property from behind the gate,” she mentioned.
“What we see right here is despicable, and we must always all be indignant.”
Mayor Ras Baraka of Newark in handcuffs exterior Delaney Corridor detention facility in Newark, NJ on Could 9, 2025.
Courtesy: Newark Mayor’s Workplace
Baraka’s administration filed a lawsuit in late March to block the opening of the Newark immigrant detention facility, arguing that its operators didn’t acquire the correct permits and violated metropolis code.
Kabir Moss, a spokesman for Baraka’s gubernatorial marketing campaign, confirmed the arrest on the facility, NBC Information reported.
Two different U.S. Home Democrats from New Jersey, Bonnie Watson Coleman and Rob Menendez, had been additionally on the detention middle on Friday.
Baraka’s workplace and marketing campaign didn’t instantly reply to CNBC’s requests for remark.
A video posted on X by News12NJ reporter Amanda Lee exhibits a bodily altercation between regulation enforcement officers and obvious protesters by a safety gate on the facility.
One other video posted by Lee seems to indicate Baraka being led away along with his fingers cuffed behind his again.
A spokesperson for Watson Coleman advised NBC that the three U.S. representatives “had been escorted in” to Delaney Corridor “after a interval of explaining the regulation to the officers on the website.”
The members of Congress mentioned they had been there to conduct oversight on the ability in gentle of reporting about different ICE facilities, which have change into political flashpoints amid Trump’s aggressive deportation efforts.
However Homeland Safety spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin in a press release to NBC known as the incident “a weird political stunt” by a bunch of protesters that included the elected officers.
The group “stormed the gate and broke into the detention facility” as a busload of detainees entered a safety gate, McLaughlin mentioned.
The protesters “holed up in a guard shack, the primary safety examine level,” she mentioned.
“Had these members requested a tour, we’d have facilitated a tour of the ability. That is an evolving state of affairs,” she added.
Watson Coleman pushed again on that characterization.
“Opposite to a press assertion put out by DHS we didn’t ‘storm’ the detention middle,” the congresswoman mentioned later Friday. She known as the DHS spokeswoman “unfamiliar with the information,” noting that her assertion incorrectly claimed there have been solely two U.S. representatives on the facility.
The mayor’s arrest was swiftly condemned by Democratic politicians and advocacy teams.
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy mentioned he was “outraged” by the motion, and known as for Baraka’s speedy launch.
Murad Awawdeh, president of the New York Immigration Coalition, known as the arrest a “reckless and irresponsible” response to the elected officers’ oversight efforts.
“We demand the speedy launch of Mayor Baraka, and for these accountable for this determination to be held accountable,” Awawdeh mentioned.