The mayor of Newark, Ras Baraka, was arrested for presumed intrusion into an immigration and customs detention center (ICE) in New Jersey Friday and released after several hours.
Baraka was released shortly after 8 p.m. and, after leaving a SUV with flashing emergency lamps, told supporters waiting: “The reality is as follows: I did nothing wrong.”
The news of the arrest of Baraka to Delaney Hall was reported on X By Alina Habba, the acting American lawyer for the district of New Jersey, and a former lawyer and personal advisor to Donald Trump.
“The mayor of Newark, Ras Baraka, committed an intrusion and ignored several warnings of the inquiries on internal security to withdraw from the center of detention of ice in Newark, New Jersey This afternoon, ”wrote Habba.
“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. “
Baraka has opposed the construction and opening of the 1,000 bed detention center, arguing that it should not be authorized to open due to construction permit problems.
Linda Baraka, the mayor’s wife, accused the federal government of target her husband.
“They did not stop anyone else. They did not ask anyone else to leave. They wanted to make an example of the mayor,” she said, adding that she had not been authorized to see him.
A crowd gathered to protest outside the building where Baraka was detained, with a lot of song: “Let the mayor leave!”
When federal officials blocked his entry, an animated argument broke out, according to Viri Martinez, an activist from the New Jersey Alliance for Immigrant Justice. He continued even after Baraka returned to the public side of the doors.
“There were howls and thrusts,” said Martinez. “Then the police invaded Baraka. They threw one of the organizers on the ground. They put Baraka handcuffed and put it in an unmarked car. ”
New Jersey Globe published a photograph of him Dested in handcuffs by officers in jackets marked “police ice”. The newspaper did not have a journalist on the scene, but said that Delaney Hall observers said there had been a “fight”.
Baraka, who spoke against Trump’s immigration policies In January, after an immigration raid in Newark, he said that the ice agents led without a mandate, were in Delaney Hall with the Democratic members of the New Jersey Congress, Bonnie Watson Coleman, Lamonica McIiver and Rob Menendez.
Politicians have accused the DEPLOI of internal security (DHS) of reopening the detention center, in violation of local orders and without the necessary permits.
This is the largest installation of this type in the northeast of the United States and was the first to open after the start of Trump’s second term in January, According to the Ice website.
Coleman, in a tweetsaid the visit was an attempt to establish conditions inside. “We have heard stories about what it is in other ice prisons. We exercise our supervisory authority to see by ourselves, ”she wrote.
Coleman also told journalists at a press conference outside the establishment that legislators had traveled in the establishment to see the conditions, according to the independent.
“The ice is out of control,” she said. “Ice thinks it can intimidate us all. And that cannot intimidate any of us. And we, people, will ensure that this administration adheres to the rules that separate us from dictatorships and other third world countries. ”
Menendez accused the agents of the ICE of having “got their hands on” the representatives Coleman and McIver, reported the New York Times. “They do not feel any restriction on what they should do, and it has been shown in broad daylight today,” said Menendez at the press conference.
In the video of the altercation shared with the Associated Press, a federal official in a jacket with the logo of internal security surveys can be understood in Baraka that he could not join a visit to the establishment because “you are not a member of the congress”.
Baraka then left the secure area, joining the demonstrators on the public side of the door. The video has ahead of him speaking through the door of a man in costume, who said: “They talk about coming back to stop you.”
“I am not on their property. They cannot go out on the street and stop me,” said Baraka.
A few minutes later, several ice agents, some carrying facial blankets, surrounded it as well as others on the public side. While the demonstrators shouted “shame!” Baraka was brought back through the handcuff safety door.
Axios said Coleman’s office said they “arrived in Delaney Hall today around 1 p.m. to exercise their supervisory authority as prescribed by law. After a period of explanation of the law to the officials of the site in which they were escorted. ”
The video attached to the tweet shows the members of the congress inside the center of the center to speak to employees. Other clips show them threatened with arrest for intrusion by uniform officials.
Associated Press contributed to this report