Newark Mayor Ras Baraka on Saturday denied trespassing at a new federal immigration detention center during a confrontation that led to his arrest while the Democrat was at the facility with three members of Congress.
Baraka, who has been protesting the center’s opening this week, was released around 8 p.m. Friday after spending several hours in custody. He was accused of trespassing and ignoring warnings to leave the Delaney Hall facility.
Tricia McLaughlin, an assistant secretary for public affairs with the Department of Homeland Security, said in an interview with CNN on Saturday that the investigation was ongoing, and the department also released more video of the confrontation. McLaughlin also accused Baraka, who is seeking his party’s nomination for governor, of playing “political games.”
Baraka, who is running to succeed term-limited Gov. Phil Murphy, has embraced the fight with the Trump administration over illegal immigration. He has aggressively pushed back against the construction and opening of the 1,000-bed detention center, arguing that it should not be allowed to open because of building permit issues.
Alina Habba, interim U.S. attorney for New Jersey, said on the social platform X that Baraka trespassed at the detention facility, which is run by private prison operator Geo Group.
Habba said Baraka had “chosen to disregard the law.”
Video of the incident showed that Baraka was arrested after returning to the public side of the gate to the facility.
Witnesses describe a heated argument
Witnesses said the arrest came after Baraka attempted to join three members of New Jersey’s congressional delegation, Reps. Robert Menendez, LaMonica McIver, and Bonnie Watson Coleman, in attempting to enter the facility.
When federal officials blocked his entry, a heated argument broke out, according to Viri Martinez, an activist with the New Jersey Alliance for Immigrant Justice. It continued even after Baraka returned to the public side of the gates.
The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement that the lawmakers had not asked for a tour of Delaney Hall, which the agency said it would have facilitated. The department said that as a bus carrying detainees was entering in the afternoon “a group of protesters, including two members of the U.S. House of Representatives, stormed the gate and broke into the detention facility.”
Ned Cooper, a spokesperson for Watson Coleman, said the three lawmakers went there unannounced because they planned to inspect it, not take a scheduled tour.
The detention center
The two-story building is next to a county prison formerly operated as a halfway house.
In February, ICE awarded a 15-year contract to The Geo Group Inc. to run the detention center. Geo valued the contract at $1 billion, in an unusually long and large agreement for ICE.
The announcement was part of President Donald Trump’s plans to sharply increase detention beds nationwide from a budget of about 41,000 beds this year.
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