The representative Lamonica McIiver, DN.J., speaks during a rally in the Department of the American Treasury in February 2025 in Washington, DC
Imal Countess / Getty images for Moveon
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Imal Countess / Getty images for Moveon
The Ministry of Justice charged the representative Lamonica McIiver, a Democrat in New Jersey, for having allegedly assaulted law enforcement agents outside a detention center for immigration last week.
The accusations were announced on social networks by the United States interim lawyer for New Jersey, Alina Habba, who previously was a personal lawyer for President Trump.
According to court documents filed on Tuesday, McIver faces two charges of aggression, resistance and embarrassment of a special immigration and customs agent and a special agent of internal security surveys during a confrontation outside the Delaney Hall detention center in Newark.
Democrats have denounced accusations as politically motivated and an effort by the Trump administration and the Ministry of Justice to intimidate the members of the Congress and fresh surveillance.
Habba said she had tried to resolve the issue with McIiver and resolve it without accusing, but that the deputy refused.
“No one is above the law – politicians or other,” said Habba. “It is the work of this office to maintain justice impartially, it doesn’t matter who you are. Now we will leave the justice system.”
Mciver denounced the accusations against her, describing the affair as “purely political”.
“They distort and distort my actions, and are supposed to criminalize and dissuade legislative surveillance,” she said in a statement. “I look forward to the truth to be clearly disposed in court.”
Delaney Hall is the first new detention center to reopen during Trump’s second term, after closing in 2017, because the Trump administration is looking for more detention space for arrested migrants. Several local officials protested his official reopening earlier this month.
McIiver said that she and her colleagues were in the establishment to proceed with lawful treatment of prisoners there. The visit should have been short and peaceful, she said, but rather turned into an unnecessary confrontation when the ice agents chose to arrest the mayor of Newark, Ras Baraka.
Baraka had faced an accusation of intrusion for offense, but Habba said in his statement that she had abandoned the case against him.
The decision of the Ministry of Justice to bring accusations against Mciver received an immediate decline from the Democrats of the Congress and officials of the New Jersey State.
The best Democrat in the House, Hakeem Jeffries, and his management team described the accusations as “extreme” and “morally in bankruptcy” and said that they had no legal or factual basis.
“We are legally authorized to present themselves in any federal establishment improvised to carry out an inspection on behalf of the American people,” they said in a statement. “By visiting the Newark detention center, the representative McIiver and two other members of the Congress respected their ex-service oath. They attacked anyone, but were themselves abused by illegally masked individuals.”
