Newark Mayor Ras Baraka Released After Arrest, Detainment By ICE Officers

UPDATED: May 9, 2025 9:55 p.m. ET

Newark Mayor Ras Baraka was released from ICE custody Friday evening following an arrest in the late afternoon at a protest attended by other Democratic lawmakers.

He’s emerged. He’s free! The crowd is crazy. No one will let him leave, so he takes the podium. Massive cheers. I can’t hear a word he’s saying.

— taryn fivek (@fivek.bsky.social) 2025-05-09T23:55:21.687Z

Video shows Baraka briefly addressing the crowd after his release, saying he decided to “show up and speak out against what I think was happening” at Delaney Hall, a privately-owned detention center that will be used to house up to 1,000 immigrants a day once it is up and running.

“This thing that’s happening right here in America is wrong,” Baraka said.

Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-New Jersey): If they can do this to us and to Mayor Ras Baraka, they can do it to anybody. They’re gearing up. We waited for over an hour to be addressed by ICE, we had the authority to be there. While we were in the waiting area,

— Craig R. Brittain (@craigbrittain.com) 2025-05-10T01:13:43.485Z

Newark Mayor Ras Baraka was arrested and detained late Friday afternoon by officers from Immigration and Customs Enforcement. 

The New York Times reports Baraka was part of a protest “at a new immigration detention facility that is expected to play a central role in President Trump’s mass deportation effort.”

Baraka’s aides said he was taken to a local ICE detention center following his arrest. 

From the Times:

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.

Another protest was immediately planned at 620 Frelinghuysen Avenue in Newark, the location of the ICE facility where Baraka was reportedly taken after his arrest. 

At a press conference, Robert Menendez said that 20 “armed individuals” were sent to confront the lawmakers present at the protest. He called Baraka’s arrest “an act of intimidation.”

Let’s be honest; he’s right. 

Following Baraka’s arrest, Alina Habba, a Trump attorney whom he appointed as interim U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey, posted the following on her X (formerly known as Twitter) account:

The Mayor of Newark, Ras Baraka, committed trespass and ignored multiple warnings from Homeland Security Investigations to remove himself from the ICE detention center in Newark, New Jersey this afternoon.  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.

The Mayor of Newark, Ras Baraka, committed trespass and ignored multiple warnings from Homeland Security Investigations to remove himself from the ICE detention center in Newark, New Jersey this afternoon. He has willingly chosen to disregard the law. That will not stand in this…

— Alina Habba (@AlinaHabba) May 9, 2025

For those of you playing at home, the president is allowed to skirt the law and ignore the Constitution all he wants, and they don’t see a problem with that, but a peaceful protest where views that are antithetical to the groupthink narrative the right is pushing are expressed is where they draw the line. 

OK, then. 

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