NEWARK, N.J: Newark Mayor Ras Baraka was arrested on Friday outside a federal immigration detention center, escalating a standoff between city officials and the Department of Homeland Security over a facility critics say was improperly opened and inhumane.

Baraka, a Democrat and gubernatorial hopeful, was protesting outside Delaney Hall, a newly activated 1,000-bed facility run by private prison contractor GEO Group under a $1 billion, 15-year contract awarded by Immigration and Customs Enforcement earlier this year. The mayor has argued the site lacks proper city permits and should never have opened.

Alina Habba, interim US attorney for New Jersey, said on the social platform X that Baraka committed trespass and ignored warnings from Homeland Security personnel to leave Delaney Hall, a detention facility run by private prison operator GEO Group.

Habba said Baraka had “chosen to disregard the law” and added that he was taken into custody.

Witnesses said the arrest followed a heated confrontation as Baraka attempted to join three members of Congress — Reps. Robert Menendez, LaMonica McIver, and Bonnie Watson Coleman — who were trying to enter the facility.

“There was yelling and pushing,” said Viri Martinez of the New Jersey Alliance for Immigrant Justice. “Then the officers swarmed Baraka. They threw one of the organizers to the ground. They put Baraka in handcuffs and put him in an unmarked car.”

In a statement, the Department of Homeland Security said that the lawmakers had not asked for a tour of the facility, contrary to witnesses’ accounts. The department said further that as a bus carrying detainees was entering, “a group of protestors, including two members of the US House of Representatives, stormed the gate and broke into the detention facility.”

Homeland Security did not respond to specific questions about whether the House members had a visit scheduled and why only the mayor was arrested.

The statement said Menendez, Watson Coleman, and a number of protesters were currently “holed up in a guard shack” at the facility.

Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin was quoted in the statement as calling it “beyond a bizarre political stunt” and saying it put agents’ and detainees’ safety at risk.

“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,” McLaughlin said.

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