The mayor of Newark, Ras Barak

Ras Baraka, Newark Democratic Mayor, New Jersey, was arrested on Friday while joining Congress members at an immigration and customs control detention center, according to the United States interim prosecutor for the New Jersey District Alina Haba.

Baraka, who is one of the six candidates looking for the Democratic nomination for the governor in the Primary of New Jersey next month, “committed transfer and ignored multiple warnings of national security investigations to withdraw from the ice arrest center in Newark, New Jersey. claimed in x.

Baraka was accused of raid, according to judicial documents presented on Friday night.

In a live interview on Saturday morning, the Assistant Secretary of Public Affairs of DHS, Tricia McLaughlin, said “there will probably be more arrests” after Friday’s incident outside the ICE Detention Center of Delaney Hall in Newark, New Jersey.

McLaughlin said Bodycam Video showed Congress members “assaulting” ice officers. “

Baraka appeared before Judge Judge Andre Espinosa at 7:15 pm on Friday for a brief preliminary hearing. Judge Espinosa ordered them to release him without bail, and no statement was introduced. He spent approximately 5 hours in custody before his release.

The transfer is a minor crime that entails a maximum punishment of up to 30 days in prison and a fine of $ 500.

A spokesman for the 2025 governor campaign in Baraka confirmed in a statement that Baraka “was arrested and arrested for ICE.”

“We are actively monitoring and we will provide more details as they are available,” said the spokesman.

Lamony congresswoman McIver (NJ-10) said she witnessed “Chaos and cruelty that defines the Trump administration immigration policy” should have been a routine supervision visit in its district.

“As we have done before, we went to carry out a legal supervision of the Congress: to do our work and demand responses to our constituents. We met with contempt, lack of respect and aggression of ICE. From mistreating the members of Congress until it stops the mayor of the largest city in our state, there is no version today that does not show the shoulder abuses of power of the Administration of Triumph,” he said in a statement in a statement.

“Americans must be outraged: democracy demands transparency, not fear and strength. No agency or administration should operate in darkness,” he said.

Baraka and three members of the Delegation of the Congress for New Jersey, Democratic representatives Bonnie Watson Coleman, Lammonica Mciver and Robert Menéndez Jr., had gone to the Immigration Detention Center of Delaney Hall to perform supervision, according to Watson Coleman and McIver.

However, according to the activists and members of the Delegation of the Congress, who spoke after the arrest of Baraka, Menéndez, Mciver and Watson Coleman were allowed to be on the property of the installation, while Baraka was not and told him that he had to go out the door.

“We have heard stories of how it is in other ice prisons. We are exercising our supervision authority to see for ourselves,” Watson Coleman wrote in a publication on Friday.

“As members of Congress, we have the power to carry out supervision,” Mciver wrote. “That’s what we are here to do.”

He had claimed in a telephone interview at Fox News on Friday afternoon that Baraka was inside the facilities and had been warned several times that he would be arrested but refused to leave. He was then put under arrest when he left the installation, said Haba.

“When you violate the law, there is no great to help you. Period, the end,” he added.

Speaking to journalists outside the detention center on Friday night, the three Democratic members of Congress who were with Baraka described the moment he was arrested.

“They left the property to public property and arrested the mayor … They have not told any of us why,” said Watson Coleman. “They simply snatched him and took him, and we tried to respond, why are you locking him? And they started discomfort.”

Menéndez said: “More than 20 ice officers armed with all the brass of the Newark office” passed them towards the door where Baraka was.

“It clearly intended to intimidate not only the mayor, but the three and all we observed today,” he said.

A challenging McIver told journalists: “We will continue fighting. This will not prevent us from fighting and doing our job that for thousands of new jerseys chose us to do. We were simply doing our job and has nothing to do with politics.”

The city of Newark had claimed that the Detention Center of the Delay Hall opened without the appropriate security protocols.

The National Security Department said in a press release on Friday that the Delaney Hall, which is a private operation installation with which ICE hire migrants, has adequate permits and said that immigrants who lack legal status to be in the United States who have committed violent crimes are held there.

New Jersey governor, Phil Murphy, criticized Baraka’s arrest in a statement on Friday afternoon.

“Mayor Baraka is an exemplary public servant that has always defended our most vulnerable neighbors. I am asking for their immediate liberation from the Federal Police,” he wrote.

The National Security Assistant Secretary, Tricia McLaughlin, said without providing details that elected officials were trying to “assault” the installation.

“Congress members breaking into a detention center go beyond a strange political trick and puts the security of our law and detainees agents at risk,” he said in a statement.

Watson Coleman also disputed the characterization of the department of his visit: “Contrary to a press release issued by DHS, we did not” storm “the detention center. The author of that press release was not familiar with the facts on the reason that did not even correctly count the number of representatives present.

Senator Cory Booker, Dn.J., who served as Newark Mayor from 2006 to 2013, said the incident “is disturbing, unnecessary and indicative of tactics that undermine the security of our communities, not adding it.

New Jersey Attorney, Matthew J. Platkin, said in a statement, “arrest public officials for protests peacefully violates the most basic principles of our democracy. The arrest of Mayor Baraka at the beginning of this afternoon outside of Delaney Hall in Newark is deeply problematic. People peacefully exercises their right to free expression and the assembly that should never be directed by the Government’s policies.”

He added that to the knowledge of his office, no state or local officer was involved in the arrest.

“Like those gathered today to protest outside Delaney Hall, my office has remained firm in our defense of state law that prohibits private immigration detention centers in our communities. We defended that law before a Federal Court of Appeals last week, and we will continue to defend the civil rights of our residents,” Pathin wrote.

However, the president of the Republican Party of New Jersey, Bob Hugin, criticized Baraka and called his actions a “trick.”

“The arrest of Mayor Ras Baraka after transferring in a federal ICE installation and ignoring repeated warnings of national security is not professional, reckless and dangerous. He is not just a mayor, he postulates for governor, and this acrobatics shows exactly what kind of leader would be: one that puts political theater ahead of public security and the rule of law,” Hugin wrote.