The Trump administration warned three Democratic legislators on Saturday that arrests were “on the table” after participating in a demonstration against an immigration and customs application in Newark, where the city mayor, Ras Baraka, was stuck.
“There will probably be more arrests to come. We actually have images of body cameras of some of these members of the congress attacing our officers of the ice application, in particular the body by slamming an ice officer. We will therefore show it to viewers very soon,” said the spokesperson for the Department of Internal Security Tricia McLaughlin on Saturday morning.
“This is an in progress in progress, and it is certainly on the table.”
The representatives of New Jersey, Bonnie Watson Coleman, Rob Menendez and Lamonica Mciver joined his colleague Democrat Baraka – the favorite of the Governors’ race of Garden State – Friday at the Ice Facility Delaney Hall, who belongs to Geo Group and which they seek to close it after having opened on Tuesday.
On Friday, the American lawyer of the State confirmed on Friday confirmed the arrest of Baraka, saying that he “had committed intrusions and ignored several warnings of the inquiries on internal security to withdraw from the Ice detention center in Newark, New Jersey this afternoon.
“He readily chose not to take into account the law. This will not remain in this state. He was placed in police custody. No one is above the law,” she added on X.
However, Baraka blamed DHS on Saturday for his arrest, saying that the agency had “degenerated” the incident.
“The reality is that Alina Habba was not there; the American lawyer was not there. She does not know what happened,” he said.
“Obviously, this is not the context of what happened. I was there for more than an hour in this space, and no one ever told me to move … Not a single person, not an ice officer, not security agents, no one told me to leave this place,” insisted Baraka.
“Someone from Homeland Security came at the end and started to degenerate the situation, and we end up being where we are today, and it is frankly the extent,” he added.
The mayor was released from the guard on Friday evening.
A video published on X earlier in the day showed it being handcuffed by internal security survey.
“I did not go there to break the laws. I have not violated any law,” said Baraka earlier on Saturday.
The member of the Newark municipal council, Kenyatta Stewart, agrees with the characterization by the mayor of the visit to Delaney Hall.
“They invited him.” Then, waiting for the Congress member, they asked him to leave, and he did it, and they stopped it outside the door. “
Congress members are legally authorized to visit any ICE installation through their supervisory authority, but these rights do not relate to Baraka.
On Tuesday, he presented himself with stakes and a bulldozer to try to prevent the opening of the installation of ice, which was previously a center for the detention of migrants under the Obama administration.
Baraka said the prison was illegally operating that the owner of the Geo Group has denied.
Earlier on Saturday, around 100 rowdy demonstrators gathered in Foley Square in Lower Manhattan to protest the arrest of Mayor Baraka during an organized event attended by the candidate of Mayor Zohran Mamdani and the public lawyer Jumaane Williams.
