Newark mayor arrested at ICE detention facility in New Jersey for alleged trespassing

Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, a gubernatorial candidate in New Jersey, was arrested Friday at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility on trespassing charges.

His campaign spokesperson, Kabir Moss, said he did not know what crime Baraka had been charged with, but Alina Habba, the interim U.S. attorney for the District of New Jersey, said in a post on X that Baraka 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.

Baraka is one of six major Democratic candidates competing in the gubernatorial primary on June 10.

Images provided by Baraka’s office show the mayor being escorted by law enforcement with his hands behind his back.

Baraka appears to remain custody, according to a statement from Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy, who called for his release.

“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 Friday afternoon.

Follow live politics coverage here

Democratic members of the New Jersey congressional delegation, including Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman, were also at the ICE detention facility on Friday. Coleman said in a post on X that they 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,” Coleman wrote on Friday afternoon, less than an hour before Habba posted about Baraka’s arrest.

A spokesperson for Coleman said 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.”

Spokespeople for McIver and Menendez did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Baraka has spoken out against Delaney Hall throughout the week. He held a news conference at City Hall on Monday with an immigrant-servicing organization to address what he called a lack of transparency and reported detention of people at the facility in defiance of city and state laws regarding 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.

The mayor has sharply criticized the Trump administration’s deportation policies, arguing in a February gubernatorial debate that President Donald Trump’s policies were “based in white supremacy and racism.”