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 for allegedly trespassing at a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in his city, New Jersey's top federal prosecutor said.
Baraka, a Democrat running for governor, was led away in handcuffs after demanding to be let through a security gate where a group of protesters and U.S. House Democrats from New Jersey had gathered.
Interim U.S. Attorney for New Jersey Alina Habba said 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, countered that the mayor "did nothing wrong."
Baraka went inside the gate at the ICE facility, known as Delaney Hall, and told officers that "he was waiting for us to come out because we were conducting an oversight visit," McIver said in remarks to reporters after the incident.
"They asked him to leave. He left, out of the gate," the lawmaker said.
ICE officers "then came out to have a huddle" and decided that Baraka "should be arrested still because he was inside," McIver said.
They then arrested the mayor "who had already left off of their property from behind the gate," she said.
"What we see here is despicable, and we should all be angry."
Mayor Ras Baraka of Newark in handcuffs outside Delaney Hall detention facility in Newark, NJ on May 9, 2025.
Courtesy: Newark Mayor's Office
Baraka's administration filed a lawsuit in late March to block the opening of the Newark immigrant detention facility, arguing that its operators failed to obtain the proper permits and violated city code.
Kabir Moss, a spokesman for Baraka's gubernatorial campaign, confirmed the arrest at the facility, NBC News reported.
Two other U.S. House Democrats from New Jersey, Bonnie Watson Coleman and Rob Menendez, were also at the detention center on Friday.
Baraka's office and campaign did not immediately respond to CNBC's requests for comment.
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.
Another video posted by Lee appears to show Baraka being led away with his hands cuffed behind his back.
A spokesperson for Watson Coleman told NBC that the three U.S. representatives "were escorted in" to Delaney Hall "after a period of explaining the law to the officials at the site."
The members of Congress 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 the 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 pushed back on that characterization.
"Contrary to a press statement put out by DHS we did not 'storm' the detention center," the congresswoman said later Friday. She called the DHS spokeswoman "unfamiliar with the facts," noting that her statement incorrectly claimed there were only two U.S. representatives at the facility.
The mayor's arrest was swiftly condemned by Democratic politicians and advocacy groups.
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy said he was "outraged" by the action, 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.
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