Newark Mayor Ras Baraka Arrested at Protest Outside ICE Detention Center

Federal officials arrested the mayor of Newark on Friday while he and three members of Congress were protesting at a new immigration detention facility that is expected to play a central role in President Trump’s mass deportation effort.

The mayor, Ras J. Baraka, was taken to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Newark, his aides said.

Federal officials described the protest as a “stunt,” and Alina Habba, a lawyer for Mr. Trump whom he had named as New Jersey’s interim U.S. attorney, announced Mr. Baraka’s arrest in a social media post.

Mr. Baraka “committed trespass and ignored multiple warnings from Homeland Security Investigations to remove himself from the ICE detention center,” Ms. Habba wrote. “He has willingly chosen to disregard the law. That will not stand in this state. He has been taken into custody. NO ONE IS ABOVE THE LAW.”

Representative Rob Menendez, a Democrat who was at the federal detention facility when Mr. Baraka was taken into custody, said that ICE agents had “put their hands on” the two other members of Congress who were there, Representatives Bonnie Watson Coleman and LaMonica McIver.

“They feel no restraint on what they should be doing, and that was shown in broad daylight today,” Mr. Menendez said at a news conference shortly after the mayor’s arrest.

On Tuesday, Mr. Baraka led a predawn protest outside the detention facility, Delaney Hall, which is expected to hold up to 1,000 migrants a day. For weeks, Newark officials had been arguing in federal court that the center’s owner, GEO Group, was in violation of city laws because it had failed to obtain required permits or a valid certificate of occupancy.

Mr. Baraka returned on Wednesday and again on Friday to request access to the facility, which is run by one of America’s largest private prison companies.

The Trump administration entered into a 15-year, $1 billion contract with GEO Group earlier this year to turn Delaney Hall into a large detention center as ICE rushed to expand its detention capacity nationwide to meet the president’s lofty mass deportation goals.

The facility’s location near major regional airports is expected to play a central role in the agency’s efforts to ramp up deportation flights in the Northeast. But the facility, which began holding its first detainees last week, quickly drew opposition from Democrats and local activists who argued that its location next to immigrant hubs in New Jersey and New York City would help accelerate the administration’s deportation pipeline.

In a social media post, Ms. Watson Coleman wrote that the facility had opened without permission from the city.

“We’ve heard stories of what it’s like in other ICE prisons,” she wrote. “We’re exercising our oversight authority to see for ourselves.”

Tricia McLaughlin, the assistant secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, described the episode on Friday afternoon as a “bizarre political stunt” in a social media post. She said Ms. Watson Coleman and Mr. Menendez, along with “multiple protesters,” had “holed up in a guard shack.”

“This illegal breaking and entering of a detention facility puts the safety of our law enforcement agents and the detainees at risk,” Ms. McLaughlin said. “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.”

In an emailed statement, Ms. McLaughlin argued that the facility had proper permits and provided a list of five immigrants she said were being detained at Delaney Hall and had been accused of serious crimes, including murder and drug trafficking.

At a news conference outside the facility, Ms. McIver said that the lawmakers were “conducting an oversight visit” to the facility. Mr. Baraka had done nothing wrong before his arrest, she said.

“What we see here is despicable, and we should all be angry,” she said.

Mr. Menendez described Mr. Baraka’s arrest as “an act of intimidation” and said ICE had sent more than 20 “armed individuals” to confront the lawmakers at the facility.

Ms. Watson Coleman said that she had been “manhandled” and described the events as “an abuse of power.”

Mark Bonamo and Taylor Robinson contributed reporting.