Mayor Ras Baraka of Newark speaks to the press near ICE agents at a demonstration outside an immigrant detention centre in Elizabeth, New Jersey May 7, 2025.
Timothy A. Clary | AFP | Getty Images
Newark Mayor Ras Baraka was arrested Friday by federal authorities for allegedly trespassing at a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in his city.
Baraka was led away in handcuffs some time after demanding to be let through a security gate at the Delaney Hall ICE facility, where a group of protesters and several members of the state’s congressional caucus were gathered.
The Democrat’s administration had filed a lawsuit in late March seeking to block the opening of the detention facility, arguing that its operators failed to obtain the proper permits and violated city code.
Interim U.S Attorney for New Jersey Alina Habba said Friday that Baraka “committed trespass and ignored multiple warnings” from Department of Homeland Security officials who told him to leave the facility.
“He has willingly chosen to disregard the law. That will not stand in this state. He has been taken into custody,” Habba, a former defense attorney for President Donald Trump, wrote on X.
But Rep. LaMonica McIver, D-N.J., who witnessed the arrest, said that Baraka “did nothing wrong.”
Baraka, who is running for governor of New Jersey, was released without bond Friday evening after appearing via videoconference before a federal magistrate. He was charged with a single misdemeanor count of trespassing.
The mayor is scheduled to appear next Thursday in Newark Federal District Court for a preliminary hearing.
Baraka, during an interview with Jen Psaki on MSNBC., said, “They charged me, I guess, based on the charge that they can find.”
“We was actually allowed on the property in the first place,” Baraka said.
“You know, nothing happened for a long, long time. It, you know, for at least over an hour. And then, you know, after they finally told us to leave, and I told him I was leaving, they came outside the gate and arrested me,” he said.
“They obviously targeted me,” Baraka said. “I wasn’t the only one out there. They came directly to me and tried to arrest me.”
Mayor Ras Baraka of Newark in handcuffs outside Delaney Hall detention facility in Newark, NJ on May 9, 2025.
Courtesy: Newark Mayor’s Office
McIver, in remarks to reporters after the incident, said that Baraka went inside the gate at Delaney Hall, and told officers that “he was waiting for us to come out because we were conducting an oversight visit.” Two other U.S. House Democrats from New Jersey, Bonnie Watson Coleman and Rob Menendez, were also at the facility at the time.
“They asked him to leave. He left, out of the gate,” McIver said.
ICE officers “then came out to have a huddle” and decided that Baraka “should be arrested still because he was inside,” she said.
They then arrested the mayor, “who had already left off of their property from behind the gate,” the lawmaker said.
“What we see here is despicable, and we should all be angry.”
A video posted on X by News12NJ reporter Amanda Lee shows a physical altercation between law enforcement officers and apparent protesters by a security gate at the facility.
A spokesperson for Watson Coleman told NBC News that the three House members “were escorted in” to Delaney Hall “after a period of explaining the law to the officials at the site.”
The lawmakers said they were there to conduct oversight on the facility in light of reporting about other ICE centers, which have become political flashpoints amid Trump’s aggressive deportation efforts.
But Homeland Security spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin, in a statement to NBC, called the incident “a bizarre political stunt” by a group of protesters that included elected officials.
The group “stormed the gate and broke into the detention facility” as a busload of detainees entered a security gate, McLaughlin said.
The protesters “holed up in a guard shack, the first security check point,” she said.
“Had these members requested a tour, we would have facilitated a tour of the facility. This is an evolving situation,” she added.
Watson Coleman rejected that characterization.
“Contrary to a press statement put out by DHS we did not ‘storm’ the detention center,” Watson Coleman said.
She called the DHS spokeswoman “unfamiliar with the facts,” noting that McLaughlin’s statement incorrectly claimed there were only two House members at the facility.
Baraka’s arrest was swiftly condemned by Democratic politicians and advocacy groups.
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy said he was “outraged,” and called for Baraka’s immediate release.
Murad Awawdeh, president of the New York Immigration Coalition, called the arrest a “reckless and irresponsible” reaction to the elected officials’ oversight efforts.
“We demand the immediate release of Mayor Baraka, and for those responsible for this decision to be held accountable,” Awawdeh said.