Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, a gubernatorial candidate in New Jersey, was arrested Friday at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility on trespassing charges.
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 show the mayor being escorted by law enforcement with his hands behind his back.
Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman, D-N.J., who was with Baraka when he was arrested, spoke to reporters outside the Homeland Security Investigations office, which is also where Baraka is being held, according to his campaign and WNBC. The lawmaker said she has been in touch with Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy and Democratic Sens. Cory Booker and Andy Kim regarding the incident.
“We have informed them — the governor and Cory — that we need an emergency bail hearing because they’re gonna try to keep the mayor overnight, and that is unnecessary,” Watson Coleman said.
The mayor’s wife, Linda Baraka, told WNBC at a protest in Newark that his family has not been allowed contact with him since he was taken into custody.
“They have not let us speak to him. They haven’t let us see —we haven’t been able to see him. They haven’t given us any updates since we’ve been out here,” she said. “They have targeted him. They’re trying to make an example of him.”
Habba’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday.
“Mayor Baraka is an exemplary public servant who has always stood up for our most vulnerable neighbors. I am calling for his immediate release by federal law enforcement,” Murphy said in a statement.
Booker, a former mayor of Newark who also called for Baraka’s immediate release, characterized the arrest as “disturbing, unnecessary and indicative of tactics that are undermining the safety and security of our communities, not adding to it.”
“Moreover, the Trump administration’s decision to reopen Delaney Hall, a private, for-profit prison in our community, should have never gone forward,” Booker added in his statement.
Kim posted on X that he had spoken with ICE officials, “who relayed that the mayor was arrested” on trespassing charges.
“However, video clearly shows the mayor outside the gates of Delaney Hall facility when he was arrested,” Kim wrote. “I’ve reached out to DHS Secretary directly and am in touch with the members of Congress who conducted the oversight inspection.”
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Watson Coleman said in a post on X 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 facility.
“We’re at Delaney Hall, an ICE prison in Newark that opened without permission from the city & in violation of local ordinances,” Watson Coleman wrote on Friday afternoon, less than an hour before Habba posted about Baraka’s arrest.
A spokesperson for Watson Coleman said 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 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.
DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin accused Watson Coleman and Menendez of “storming” into the detention facility.
“Members of Congress are not above the law and cannot illegally break into detention facilities. Had these members requested a tour, we would have facilitated a tour of the facility. This is an evolving situation,” McLaughlin said in a statement.
DHS made no mention of Baraka’s arrest.
At a news conference, Menendez referred to Baraka’s arrest as “an act of intimidation,” adding that ICE had sent more than 20 “armed individuals” to confront the lawmakers and that they had “put their hands” on Watson Coleman and McIver.
A spokesperson for McIver did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Menendez went on to say that “this administration lies every day when they’re saying they’re going after criminals. It is not true.”
“They feel no weight of the law. They feel no restraint on what they should be doing,” he added.
The Trump administration previously acknowledged that it mistakenly deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia to a prison in El Salvador in March, and has since defended its actions while failing to deliver on orders from courts, including the Supreme Court, to “facilitate” his return to the United States.
President Donald Trump has said he “could” arrange for Abrego Garcia’s return with a phone call, contrasting claims his administration has made in court that it cannot get him back.
Baraka has spoken out against Delaney Hall 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.
Baraka also visited Delaney Hall with Newark city officials on Tuesday.
Baraka, 55, was first elected as mayor of Newark, the state’s largest city, in 2014. He easily won re-election 2018 and 2022. He is one of six major Democratic candidates competing in the gubernatorial primary on June 10.
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.”
