Immigration Customs Enforcement Agents - Photo by Center for Immigration Studies
(Reuters) -The Democratic mayor of Newark, New Jersey, who is running to be the state’s governor, was arrested on Friday after refusing to leave a federal immigration detention center, the top federal prosecutor in New Jersey said in a statement posted on X.
Alina Habba, a former lawyer to President Donald Trump serving as acting U.S. attorney, said Mayor Ras Baraka “committed trespass and ignored multiple warnings” to leave a detention facility run by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Newark.
A spokesperson for Baraka did not immediately respond to a request for comment. It was not immediately clear if he was facing charges over the incident.
His arrest came as three Democratic members of Congress were also attending a demonstration at the facility, known as Delaney Hall. A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security accused demonstrators of breaking into the facility when a bus of detainees arrived.
“These members of Congress storming into a detention facility goes beyond bizarre political stunt and puts the safety of our law enforcement agents and the detainees at risk,” the spokesperson said in a statement.
Representative Bonnie Watson Coleman of New Jersey posted on X earlier on Friday that she was at the facility with two colleagues, LaMonica McIver and Robert Menendez Jr.
(Reporting by Andrew Goudsward; Editing by Leslie Adler and Chizu Nomiyama)
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