Newark Mayor Ras Baraka said he’s been “shocked by all the lies” told so far about his arrest at a New Jersey immigration detention center, specifically the false claims that he’d been trespassing before he was taken into custody.
“No one else arrested,” the mayor noted, “I was invited in, then they arrested me on the sidewalk.”
Baraka has been pushing back against the opening of the Delaney Hall facility in Newark, embracing the battle against the Trump administration over its illegal immigration crackdown. In February, ICE awarded a 15-year contract to Geo Group Inc. to run the 1,000-bed detention center in New Jersey’s biggest city.
Still, the mayor has maintained that he was not at the site on Friday in protest. He said he was there to participate in a press conference with a congressional delegation, including Reps. Bonnie Watson Coleman, Rob Menendez and LaMonica McIver.
Watson Coleman said the trio showed up unannounced because they planned to inspect the facility — not take a scheduled tour, as previously reported. She also accused the Department of Homeland Security of being intentionally misleading with the information they released in wake of Baraka’s detainment.
“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.”
Witnesses on the scene said the situation quickly escalated after Baraka attempted to enter the facility alongside the delegation. He was blocked by federal officials, sparking tensions that continued to escalate.
Video of the altercation viewed by The Associated Press shows a federal official telling Baraka he’s not allowed to enter the facility because “you are not a Congress member.” The mayor then returns to the public side of the gate before a man in a suit can be heard telling him: “They’re talking about coming back to arrest you.”
“I’m not on their property,” Baraka then says. “They can’t come out on the street and arrest me.”
Within minutes, Baraka, a Democrat who’s running to succeed term-limited Gov. Phil Murphy, was surrounded by ICE agents, who put him in handcuffs, then hauled him off in an unmarked car. He spent several hours in custody before he was freed around 8 p.m. the same night.
Interim U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey and former Donald Trump defense lawyer Alina Habba defended the arrest, writing in a statement on X that Baraka “committed trespass and ignored multiple warnings from Homeland Security Investigations to remove himself from the ICE detention center in Newark.”
Upon his release, Baraka waved off Habba’s claims, saying: “The reality is this: I didn’t do anything wrong.” He also vowed to fight for everyone living in Newark, immigrants included.
“All of us here, every last one of us, I don’t care what background you come from, what nationality, what language you speak,” Baraka said, “at some point we have to stop these people from causing division between us.”
With News Wire Services
