By Steve Neavling
The Department of Homeland Security is investigating three Democratic lawmakers from New Jersey after a confrontation with ICE officers outside a Newark detention facility earlier this month, a DHS spokesperson confirmed, USA Today reports.
Reps. Bonnie Watson Coleman, LaMonica McIver, and Rob Menendez visited the Delaney Hall detention center unannounced on May 9, shortly after ICE agents arrested Newark Mayor Ras Baraka. DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said the department is reviewing body camera footage and that arrests of the lawmakers are “definitely on the table.”
“We actually have body camera footage of these members of Congress assaulting these ICE enforcement officers, including body slamming a female ICE officer,” McLaughlin told CNN.
Watson Coleman disputed the account, saying on X that an ICE agent “physically shoved” her after she exited the facility to speak with Baraka.
“ICE agents began shoving us,” she wrote.
Baraka, who faces a federal trespassing charge, said he had already left the facility when he was arrested.
“I didn’t break any laws,” he told CNN. “I was there as the mayor of the city, exercising my right and duty as an elected official.”
The lawmakers were not arrested, according to Watson Coleman’s spokesperson. Members of Congress are legally permitted to conduct unannounced visits to federal detention facilities.
