Ras Baraka, who was released from custody Friday night, is one of six major Democratic candidates competing in the gubernatorial primary on June 10.
By Bridget Bowman, Zoë Richards and Raquel Coronell Uribe
Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, a gubernatorial candidate in New Jersey, was arrested Friday on trespassing charges during a chaotic scene involving protesters, members of Congress and federal agents at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility.
Alina Habba, the interim U.S. attorney for the District of New Jersey, said in a post on X that the Democratic mayor trespassed and “ignored multiple warnings from Homeland Security” officials to “remove himself from the ICE detention center in Newark, New Jersey this afternoon.”
“He has willingly chosen to disregard the law. That will not stand in this state,” Habba added.
Images provided by Baraka’s office showed the mayor being escorted by federal law enforcement agents with his hands behind his back.
He was released from custody Friday night.
Baraka said he didn’t break any laws
“At the end of the day, you know, we didn’t do anything wrong. You know, this should not have happened today, but it did,” Baraka said.
The mayor added that he had not been at the Delaney Hall detention center earlier to protest, but instead to “support my congresspeople.”
Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman, D-N.J., said in a post on X Friday afternoon that she and two other Democratic members of the New Jersey congressional delegation were “exercising our oversight authority to see for ourselves” what it’s like at the ICE facility.
In a criminal complaint filed in a New Jersey district court Friday, the special agent in charge of the Newark division of DHS, Ricky Patel, signed an affidavit accusing Baraka of unlawfully entering and remaining in the ICE facility. Patel said that “notice against trespass was given.”
Baraka gave a different account, saying in an interview Friday night that he was allowed on the property in the first place and that nothing happened for at least an hour.
“After they finally told us to leave, and I told them I was leaving, they came outside the gate and arrested me. So it looked like it was targeted,” Baraka told Jen Psaki on MSNBC.
He added that the charges have not been dropped, and that he must appear in court.
Watson Coleman, who was with Baraka when he was taken into custody, denounced his arrest during a separate interview on MSNBC.
“This is un-American. This breaks my heart that in the United States of America, as imperfect as it has been, there has never been this disrespect for individual rights, for positions or for justice in general,” she said.
A spokesperson for Watson Coleman said earlier that the lawmaker was with Reps. LaMonica McIver and Rob Menendez when they were “escorted in” to the Delaney Hall Detention Center after “a period of explaining the law to the officials.” The spokesperson added that Friday’s visit was organized by the members of Congress, separate from Baraka.
The mayor’s wife, Linda Baraka, had told WNBC at a protest before his release that authorities “targeted him.”
“They’re trying to make an example of him,” she said.
Habba’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday.
Baraka has spoken out against the detention center throughout the week. He held a news conference with an immigrant-servicing organization at City Hall on Monday to address what he called a lack of transparency and the reported detention of people at the facility in defiance of city and state laws regarding its certificate of occupancy, inspections and permits. He also visited the facility with Newark city officials on Tuesday.
The mayor has sharply criticized the Trump administration’s deportation policies, arguing in a February gubernatorial debate that Trump’s policies were “based in white supremacy and racism.”
Watson Coleman said on social media Friday that the ICE facility in Newark “opened without permission from the city & in violation of local ordinances.”
The Department of Homeland Security disputed claims that it lacked the proper permits, saying in a news release Friday that it had “valid permits” and that plumbing and electricity inspections, as well as fire codes, had been cleared.