After being arrested earlier on Friday (May 9) while conducting a congressional visit to a NJ ICE facility, Mayor Ras Baraka of Newark has been released from custody.
According to NBC New York, Baraka was released shortly after 8 p.m. He stepped out of an SUV and addressed his concerned supporters:
“The reality is this: I didn’t do anything wrong,” Baraka said.
Alina Habba, the current interim U.S. attorney for New Jersey, said Baraka “committed trespass and ignored multiple warnings from Homeland Security Investigations to remove himself from the ICE detention center.”
“He has willingly chosen to disregard the law. That will not stand in this state. He has been taken into custody,” Habba posted on X (formerly Twitter).
Leading up to his arrest, Baraka visited the facility to protest the prison being reopened. According to Baraka, the detention center is not operating legally without the proper permits.
Three members of New Jersey’s congressional delegation, Reps. Robert Menendez, LaMonica McIver, and Bonnie Watson Coleman acompnanied him.
“We’re at Delaney Hall, an ICE prison in Newark that opened without permission from the city & in violation of local ordinances,” Rep. Coleman wrote in a post on X.
“The agents started intimidating and putting their hands on the congresswomen. There was yelling and pushing,” Martinez added. “Then the officers swarmed Baraka. They threw one of the organizers to the ground. They put Baraka in handcuffs and put him in an unmarked car.”
The Department of Homeland Security issued a statement claiming that the lawmakers were not granted permission to visit the facility, and as a bus carrying detainees was entering the facility, “a group of protestors, including two members of the U.S. House of Representatives, stormed the gate and broke into the detention facility.”
Watson Coleman said the DHS statement was not a truthful one.
“Contrary to a press statement put out by DHS, we did not ‘storm’ the detention center,” she wrote. “The author of that press release was so unfamiliar with the facts on the ground that they didn’t even correctly count the number of Representatives present. We were exercising our legal oversight function as we have done at the Elizabeth Detention Center without incident.”
Baraka, a Democrat, is currently running to succeed Gov. Phil Murphy, whose term ends in November.
