Newark Mayor Ras Baraka released after being arrested while protesting ICE detention facility he vowed to shut down
Newark Mayor and New Jersey gubernatorial candidate Ras Baraka was released Friday night after being collared at the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility that opened Tuesday — and which he has vowed to shut down.
Baraka was released around 7:50 p.m. to cheers from the large crowd of protesters and swath of public officials — including socialist Big Apple mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani.
“We know we’re right. What we ask for is correct,” the 55-year-old said to roars of support from those who had been chanting for his release.
“We ask them to obey our laws. To obey the policies and rules here in the city and state of New Jersey. And not to run roughshod over the Constitution of the United States, the Bill of Rights, the Fourth, Fifth, the 14th Amendments. Everyone on this soil deserves due process,” the gubernatorial candidate said.
Mamdami stood in solidarity with the demonstrators — and expressed his support for Baraka’s actions.
“We have been living in a city where we’ve been told by our mayor that the only way to deal with the Trump administration is through either collaboration or cowardice,” Mamdani told The Post. “And what we’ve seen from Mayor Baraka is this statement that he has lived up to, which is that you cannot meet extremism with moderation.
“We are seeing a complete disregard for the rule of law from this Trump administration and a desire to throw any dissidents into jail, seemingly at any opportunity,” he added.
The New York assemblyman is consistently polling second to former Gov. Andrew Cuomo in the Democratic mayoral primary.
Video posted to X at just after 3 p.m. by a News 12 New Jersey reporter showed Baraka, with his hands cuffed behind his back, being led away from the detention center by a Homeland Security Investigations officer.
Baraka “committed trespass and ignored multiple warnings from Homeland Security Investigations to remove himself from the ICE detention in Newark, New Jersey this afternoon,” Alina Habba, the US Attorney for the District of New Jersey wrote on X five minutes later.
“He has willingly chosen to disregard the law. That will not stand in this state. He has been taken into custody,” Habba posted, adding “NO ONE IS ABOVE THE LAW.”
It came after Baraka and several New Jersey Democratic congresspeople — Reps. Bonnie Watson Coleman, Rob Menendez and LaMonica McIver — showed up at the Delaney Hall ICE facility, calling for the GEO Group-owned facility to be shut down.
“We’re at Delaney Hall, an ICE prison in Newark that opened without permission from the city & in violation of local ordinances,” Coleman wrote in a post on X, along with pictures and videos of the scene.
“We’ve heard stories of what it’s like in other ICE prisons. We’re exercising our oversight authority to see for ourselves,” she wrote.
Habba claimed that Baraka was inside the facility, “was warned, was asked to leave several times,” but refused.
Baraka “was put under arrest inside the facility, walked out when he was told he was under arrest, and then was cuffed,” she said in an interview with Fox News host Martha MacCallum.
However, Newark City Councilmember Kenyatta Stewart, who was with the mayor at the time of his arrest, rebuked that.
“They invited him in. A Geo security guard actually opened the door for him,” Stewart told The Post. “Then, as we were waiting for the congressman, they asked him to leave, and he did, and they arrested him outside the gate.”
“We now have a team of lawyers working to get him out,” Stewart added.
DHS has characterized the action as a “break-in” and excoriated the protesting pols.
“Members of Congress storming into a detention facility goes beyond a bizarre political stunt and puts the safety of our law enforcement agents and detainees at risk,” DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement.
“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 pf the facility,” McLaughlin added.
HSI “did absolutely everything correct,” said Habba, who was appointed by President Trump in March.
“When you break the law, there’s no grandstanding that will help you. Period, the end,” she said.
Baraka — who is a frontrunner for the Democratic nomination for this year’s New Jersey governor’s race — had gone to the ICE facility Tuesday, the same day it was reopened, claiming it did not have the required permits to operate.
At that protest, the Democrat showed up with protesters and a bulldozer — accusing the detention center of turning away local fire inspectors, following a judge’s order that allowed city officials to examine the site, according to images The Post obtained from ICE.
At that protest, the Democrat accused the detention center of turning away local fire inspectors, following a judge’s order that allowed city officials to examine the site.
He demanded full fire, safety and health inspections following a previous inspection that reportedly found “violations that put first responders at risk, violations that put detainees at risk and workers that are there at risk.”
Newark fire inspectors had issued three code violations against the facility.
The mayor vowed he would return to Delaney Hall to protest every day until it closed, according to local reports.
“We want them to follow our rules, follow our laws,” Baraka said at the time.
Geo Group, which recently signed a 15-year $1-billion lease with the federal government for Delaney Hall, claims it is in compliance with the law.
“Delaney Hall has a valid Certificate of occupancy that has been issued by the City of Newark and complies with all the contracted health and safety requirements, and in fact, Delany Hall operated as a federal immigration processing center for six years under President Obama’s administration, without opposition from local political leaders,” spokesperson Christopher Ferreira said.
“Delaney Hall’s activation as a federal immigration processing center has created hundreds of unionized jobs, with an average annual salary of $105,000, and is expected to contribute $50 million to the local Newark economy,” he added.
