DHS Threatens To Arrest Sitting Members Of Congress

Written By Leeja Miller

Sources:

Transcript:

Hi, you’re tuned into Why, America? I’m Leeja Miller, let’s get started. On Friday, May 9th, the Mayor of Newark, New Jersey, Ras Baraka, visited the Delaney Hall facility, an immigration detention center in his city. He was there with three members of the US house of representatives from New Jersey, Bonnie Watson Coleman, Rob Menendez, and LaMonica McIver. The three representatives showed up without warning because, according to Watson Coleman, they planned to inspect the facility. According to Ras Baraka, he was present to participate in a press conference with the three members of Congress. What happened on the ground has been subject to a lot of different interpretations, but video footage was released of part of the incident, let’s watch.

That was the official body cam footage released by Trump’s Department of Homeland Security. According to Ras Baraka, he entered the facility with the three congress members to do an inspection, he was asked to leave, he did leave, then a few moments later ICE came back out onto the public sidewalk and arrested him for trespassing. During the arrest, protestors tried to stop ICE by surrounding the mayor, and Representative LaMonica McIver can be seen in the video yelling “don’t touch me” and either being shoved around or doing the shoving, it’s unclear. With that many bodies and chaos like you genuinely cannot tell where the force of movement is coming from. According to LaMonica McIver, she was, quote “assaulted by multiple ICE officers while regional directors of ICE watched it happen.” And, for the record, the other congresswoman on the ground, Bonnie Watson Coleman, is 80 years old.

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This story, with multiple competing reports on the details and lots of media spin coming from the Trump administration, is a great example of how the bias in the media you consume can impact your interpretation of events. For example, if I saw this headline on TownHall, “NJ Mayor Arrested at ICE Facility As Democrat Lawmakers Storm Gates in Political Stunt” that would give me a very specific, right-leaning idea about the incident. The Ground News browser extension provides context, and I can see how other sources are framing the story by clicking full coverage.

On the Ground News website you can see that there are 375 sources covering this topic

Among them, left leaning Alternet uses the headline: “'Chilling reminder of where we are': Officials condemn 'disturbing' arrest of Newark mayor” while far right The Western Journal frames it as: “Another Promise Kept: Trump DHS Arrests Dem Mayor at ICE Facility” These are very different takes on the same story and a clear example of how consuming news from only one perspective can limit your understanding of a situation.

This is where Ground News comes in - and why I've been using them for over a year. Today’s partner Ground News is an app and website that offers tools to help you critically analyze the news you read, providing context to understand the full picture.

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According to Trump regime DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin, quote “We actually have body camera footage of some of these members of Congress assaulting these ICE enforcement officers, including body slamming a female ICE officer.” She then cited to the body cam video we just watched as proof that these lawmakers were storming the ICE facility and body slamming ice officers. And listen. While I think the situation is complicated, you cannot watch that footage and conclude that anyone was “body slamming” anyone. And like yes I am going to look up the official definition of body slam because if you’re a government spokesperson making accusations against a sitting member of Congress I am going to hold you to the words you say. According to the Mirriam Webster dictionary, the definition of “body slam” is “a wrestling throw in which the opponent's body is lifted and brought down hard to the mat.” Calling anything that happened during that incident a “body slam” is a gross misrepresentation at best. Unless you’re talking about the moment where it appears a protester is thrown onto the ground by an ICE agent, is that the body slamming you were talking about? Of course not.

Tricia McLaughlin later shared a slowed down video of the incident, the voracity of which I do not know, showing Congresswoman LaMonica McIver in the crowd and claiming that this is “assault against our ICE law enforcement agents.” And let’s not fucking beat around the bush here because the fact that LaMonica McIver is a black woman is absolutely a factor in how lil whitey Tricia McLaughlin is trying to frame this issue. In the slowed down video you can see Congresswoman McIver pull her arm away from someone who is trying to grab her, you can see her shove or be shoved into an ICE officer, though there is another ICE officer very close behind her so again it is very hard to tell who is doing the shoving. And that footage absolutely shows ICE agents grabbing, shoving, pushing, and assaulting the people around them as well. But it is playing on the angry black woman trope and betting that because we’re all stupid our eyes will just gravitate to that red blazer and not notice the man shoving her from behind. And even IF, even IF, she is the one doing the shoving, which, again, it is asinine to look at a throng of people and point to someone in the middle and say yup that person is definitely the one doing the shoving, case closed, even IF that is true, to characterize this as an “assault,” given how the 20 or so heavily armed and masked ICE officers are acting around her, or as her “body slamming” anyone is fucking state propaganda at its finest. And judging by the comments on twitter, a fair few people fell for it.

Mayor Ras Baraka was released from custody later that evening, though federal prosecutors are pursuing trespassing charges against him and he has a court appearance scheduled for this Thursday. In an interview with CNN on Saturday, DHS Spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said, quote, “there will likely be more arrests coming,” stoking fears that the three members of Congress who were present that day could also be subject to arrest. Border Czar and Elmer Fudd lookalike contest winner Tom Homan, seen here watching a baby getting torn out of the arms of its immigrant mother, told Fox News, who must keep a cot for him out somewhere in the back because that man is ALWAYS giving them sound bites, that the members of congress “impeded” immigration enforcement, an important argument to highlight because I am certain this won’t be the last time we hear the argument that members of congress or some other person protesting against ICE, was “impeding” immigration enforcement and “trespassing” as a pretext for politically motivated prosecutions.

Congressman Rob Menendez, who was also in the crowd, later pointed out, quote, “No matter what this Administration tells the American people, the law is very clear: Members of Congress have a legal right to enter any DHS detention facility to conduct oversight without prior notice - something I’ve done twice this year without issue.” That was a tweet which also included a highlighted section of the law he’s referencing, Public Law 118, which states that the funds appropriated for DHS may NOT be used to prevent members of Congress from entering their facilities, including detention centers, even without notice.

That being said, members of Congress are not immune to arrest for criminal conduct, even while on the job. Which is why DHS and Trump officials are doubling down on the argument that these members of Congress “impeded” law enforcement and “assaulted” ICE officers. Because they can’t get them for trespassing like they did with Mayor Baraka, so they have to come up with something else criminal as pretext for their arrests.

According to the members of Congress and Mayor Baraka, the mayor was present to participate in a press conference, they had been there for two hours before the incident occurred, and Mayor Baraka was waiting outside for them because he knew he could not enter the facility. Representative Watson Coleman, who again is 80 years old, stated that the filmed confrontation occurred after the members of congress had concluded their visit inside the facility. According to reporting from MSNBC, witnesses at the scene said Mayor Baraka attempted to join the Congressional delegation to enter the facility, but he was told he could not because he wasn’t a member of Congress, which is when he agreed to move to the public side of the fence before he was arrested.

Again, it’s very possible the mayor showed up, attempted to enter the facility, when he received push back from ICE we do not know how he responded off camera, there are competing accounts, but the footage we do have shows him agreeing peacefully to leave the premises and go to the public sidewalk.

Now, unless there’s a section of the law I haven’t seen, which is very possible because contrary to what some people in my comments section seem to think I have not actually read every law ever written, but I try to do my due diligence, okay, as far as I can tell it’s true that Mayor Baraka did not have a right to be there in the same way that Congress members had a statutorily recognized right to show up unannounced to see the facility. And federal trespass law applies where anyone knowingly enters another person’s land without permission. Technically it could maybe be argued that that’s what happened here. That being said, context matters in the law. This is the Mayor of the largest city in New Jersey who was accompanied by three sitting members of Congress. To decide to move forward with actual arrest and federal prosecution, especially considering he did leave the premises when asked, as is shown by video evidence, is not normal. Because typically the DOJ at least attempts to avoid the appearance of impropriety or politically motivated prosecutions. There was no property damage, there were no actual injuries reported, there is no necessity for the public good that this prosecution move forward especially given the appearances of political motivation. So just so we’re clear, no one is above the law but the law does tread lightly where elected officials are concerned. At least in theory. But we live in the upside down so now the mayor of the largest city in New Jersey was arrested and is being prosecuted for entering and then peaceably leaving a facility while accompanying a congressional delegation.

And this is important for a number of reasons. The more we see elected officials, judges, mayors, governors, getting arrested or threatened with arrest, the more it normalizes that image. It paints a picture of widespread corruption within the government, which feeds into the Republican narrative that the government is filled with corruption that must be rooted out through drastic measures, even though it is the democrats getting arrested while the Republicans accept multi million dollar jets from Qatar and other foreign emoluments, enrich themselves off their government positions, collude with billionaires, and do all sorts of other blatantly corrupt activities. So it’s important to call out that this is incredibly concerning from the perspective of the basic preservation of democracy. It is also harrowing how frequently we are getting bombarded with videos of ICE agents forcibly arresting people, whether it’s the mayor of Newark, or the recent video out of Worcester, Massachusetts of a woman being forcibly arrested on the sidewalk which I won’t share here because frankly it’s upsetting and I had a cry about it this weekend and also I’m not interested in exploiting what is likely one of the worst moments of this family’s life. And as Organizer Viri Martinez, who was present the day of the Delaney Hall incident, told The Washington Post, quote ““If they are doing this and assaulting congresspeople in front of cameras and in front of the community, imagine what DHS is doing to violate the rights of immigrants out of sight.”

It’s also important because of the underlying context of this arrest of Ras Baraka. Mayor Ras Baraka is a Democrat who is running for governor of New Jersey. The primary is next month and there are six people running to fill the Democratic nomination, all polling within a few percentage points of each other. Ras Baraka is seen as the most progressive candidate in the race. Given how much of a pain in the ass Democratic governors have been to the Trump administration, it makes sense they’d want to cull the most progressive of the bunch to avoid another progressive state pushing back. Does that mean that this was some sort of coordinated effort to frame Ras Baraka by arresting him on that day, no, I don’t think so. But I do think the Trump regime sees this as a convenient means of taking down at least one progressive politician, and potentially three sitting members of congress as well, through misrepresentation, defamation, and propaganda.

Another important detail: Delaney Hall, the immigrant detention center where the altercation took place, is under a new management agreement. According to reporting from the Washington Post, Delaney Hall opened in 2000 to house federal, state, and county detainees. From 2011 through 2017, it was used as an ICE detention facility to house up to 450 immigrants. Since 2018, lawmakers and leaders in New Jersey have been pushing to prevent public jails and local police from cooperating with federal immigration enforcement and in 2021 a law was enacted that prohibited New Jersey from renewing or creating new detention contracts with ICE. Numerous private prison operators sued to get the ban struck down as unconstitutional and in 2023 a federal district judge ruled that parts of the ban violated the US constitution. That case is ongoing as the New Jersey attorney general has appealed that ruling, arguing that the 10th Amendment prohibits the federal government from commandeering state resources for its purposes, according to the Washington Post.

In February, DHS entered a 15 year, $1 billion dollar contract with private prison company GEO Group to manage a 1000-bed immigrant detention center there. GEO Group confirmed they began housing detainees there on May 1st. According to the Washington Post, quote, “Community and elected leaders have accused ICE and GEO Group of abuse and neglect of detainees. They accused the company of maintaining terrible conditions that verged on the inhumane … there is no evidence the owners have adequately fixed the dilapidated building sitting in the center of an area known as “chemical corridor” for its environmental pollution.” And as the largest immigrant detention center now on the East Coast, its close proximity to airports also has advocates alarmed, given the Trump administration’s proclivity for whisking away detainees onto planes faster than judges can respond to complaints and then claiming it’s totally out of their hands and they can’t do anything now oops!!

As Mayor of Newark, where the center is located, Ras Baraka sued GEO Group, alleging that the group didn’t have proper building permits and lacked a valid certificate of occupancy, among other things. The city has requested that a federal judge block the opening of the center and allow city officials inside to inspect for compliance with local, state, and administrative codes. Ras Baraka has been a vocal opponent of the opening of Delaney Hall, including speaking to protestors in support of barring its opening back in March. So his arrest is an escalation of ICE retaliation against anyone standing in the way of their operations as he was a very public face of resistance to the opening of the largest detention center on the East Coast.

All of these details matter, and they paint a pretty damning picture of the way this administration is using this incident to further their policy goals and continue their pattern of persecuting their political opponents. I’m not even going to call this an “escalation” because I think it’s a continuation at this point. Things have escalated. And they are continuing to be bad. There is no way this is the final incident of very public facing protesters or public officials being arrested and then smeared by the regime of one of the most powerful countries on earth. That has major consequences for democracy and a chilling effect that reverberates across communities, not just for elected officials.

If you’ve seen this video or other videos of ICE arrests and want to know how to help, there’s so many ways to get involved, but I want to direct you to a resource called the Defend and Recruit Playbook, defend and recruit dot org, it is created by Siembra North Carolina, an immigrants rights organization out of North Carolina. This playbook helps immigrants and non-immigrants form community and build ICE watch groups, among so many other things. It is a WEALTH of information and a great guide for getting started to help know your rights or defend your neighbors from increased ICE activities. A couple key points I saw across a number of immigrants rights platforms: do openly film ICE if you see them in public, but be sure you are standing a few feet away from them and are not concealing your phone–some states have laws against secretly filming anyone. Do be sure to report ICE sightings to your local ICE watch network–if you don’t have one that’s where that Defend and Recruit Playbook comes in. If you attempt to interfere with an arrest or conceal an immigrant from law enforcement, you could be held criminally liable. This is not legal advice I’m just stating facts for informational purposes only, do what you want, I’m not your lawyer.

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And if you liked this episode, you’ll like the one from last week about the military trans ban.

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