NEWARK, N.J. (PIX11) — Newark Mayor Ras Baraka was taken into custody by homeland security at an ICE facility in New Jersey on Friday afternoon, according to Alina Habba, the Interim U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey.
“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,” read the social media post from Habba.
Baraka is being held at the ICE Newark field office.
This is a developing story please check back for updates.
It’s funny how “violently arrested” is ICEwashed into “taken into custody”
I’d like to highlight this image of ICE agents looking almost exactly like narco gang members. Even the Nazis showed their faces.
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/05/09/newark-mayor-arrested-baraka-ice.html
Two of them should be careful because they seem to be much closer to being deported than the one in the middle
They’re pulling these lowlifes from all over the federal government to serve in the ICE kidnapping squads. Being in an anonymous unaccountable goon squad really appeals to these dudes.
Update, has been released from custody
Context: the facility failed a fire inspection and is refusing to allow inspectors back onto the grounds or to correct the violations. The mayor and city council made a point of serving the notice in person previously, which was ignored. The GEO group are saying “fire safety is politics” and refusing to cooperate.
More context, based on this article:
The mayor refused to leave an ICE facility because the facility (Delaney Hall) is ignoring city requirements for inspections. Newark demands these safety inspections in part because the building is rated to house 1000 people, and ICE won’t or can’t say how many detainees are housed there. ICE is leasing this building from GEO, a private prison group.
So this isn’t just about adherence to fire codes. It’s about protecting the most vulnerable people from potentially deadly abuse by the US federal government.
Edit: Mayor was leading protests outside the facility. https://youtu.be/T9vbVKnNr6Q
Tear up the fucking road going into that place and don’t let anyone in.
Mayor and City Counsel are heroes, is what I read from that.
As I understand it, GEO and ICE are claiming the local officials have no business inspecting the private facilities. They believe they are beyond state inspection laws, and will only answer only to ICE regarding conditions.
Shiiit, who do they think they are, a fortune 500 company?
Sarcasm aside, it’s completely ridiculous. Even the big guys play nice with the fire service because nobody wants to get fucked by the insurance companies. I think the next step here would be to notify the GEO group’s insurers that they have multiple fire safety violations and they’re refusing to fix them.
Brilliant suggestion.
If this was federal land with a federal building I could imagine some legal opinion that lets them be fire traps outside the jurisdiction of the city, but just because the federal government leases a facility doesn’t make it then an exclusively federal building.
GEO group needs to be burned to the ground. Why am I paying for them to flout the law?
Agreed, but… we need fire inspections to make sure the detainees are actually able to evacuate safely before we do so. That’s the problem.
Thank you!
I’m fucking confused.
I hope New Jersey’s governor decides to deploy their national guard over this. If ICE arrests mayors, then they will inevitably work their way to the top. This is a red line.
Then Trump will just federalize the New Jersey National Guard. Which presidents can do. Putting the Guard directly under Trump’s (really SecDef Pete Hegseth’s) control, making the governor’s orders invalid. Removes the governor from the Guard’s chain of command.
That’s an existing presidential power as Commander-in-Chief. In better times used by a president to take over the Alabama National Guard to enforce anti-segregation federal law and protect a little black girl going to school. Now may be used by a mad king racist fascist to ensure nobody protects vulnerable brown and black people.
So let HitlerPig do it. Make him do it. Weaponize his virtuosic incompetence against him. Show the world, and history, who he really is.
Apparently 20-something states still have state militias/state guards, and NJ is one of those.
You know, the actual “well-regulated militias” that 2a refers to…
I think that could kind of pan out differently than the National Guard, since it’s fully under the purview of the state of NJ.
That only works if the guard accepts his orders. Legally, they have no choice. But in practical terms, large groups of heavy armed men get to make their own decisions.
It’ll be one hell of a bluff to assume he wouldn’t call out the army and go on martial law.
Legally, they have no choice
They have a legal obligation to refuse every unlawful order he gives, including all these immigration policies. The military is not Trump’s personal plaything, even if he wants it to be.
You and I both know they select those least likely to think for themselves. But one can hope.
this is more like the month of long knives…they are taking them slowly, one by one, anyone who questions what the administrration is doing on the people’s turf. The Mayor was doing his job and they said he can’t. That’s it. They arrested a mayor of a major city because he was doing his job…
The administration is also folding in many, though not all, of these cases. Just with 10x less media coverage
For instance, a week ago ICE released Columbia pro-Palestine activist Mohsen Mahdawi from detention after a judge ordered immediate release. Here’s a photo of him leaving
Or when Maine’s governor stood up to Trump’s anti-trans attacks, he at first suspended federal school lunch funding to the state. But a month later he backed down
The Trump administration has agreed not to freeze funds to Maine schools, a win for a state that was targeted by the president over its support of transgender rights.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/may/02/trump-maine-funding-freeze
This is not to say what they’re trying to do is not dangerous. This is to say they are weaker than they want us all to think
EDIT: also just now, Rümeysa Öztürk has been released from ICE detention after a judge ordered her immediate release earlier today. Here she is speaking to supporters
This is not to say what they’re trying to do is not dangerous. This is to say they are weaker than they want us all to think
Exactly, resistance is not only necessary, it is possible, it’s just much harder to see that second truth right now
The scariest part is that every American I know personally has no idea any of these ICE raids are even happening, let alone that they’ve started detaining judges and mayors or what that even implies. Americans are so dangerously uninformed.
Americans are completely disengaged politically. Most are too busy consooming, side hustling or paying healthcare bills.
The rest are getting their news from Facebook, Instagram and TikTok.
I haven’t met a GenZ American that’s media literate.
This is absolutely the scariest part. We’re not going to have enough people to fight back effectively until most of us are already in fucking camps or dead.
That’s why we need more shit like this and we need to make sure everyone hears about it
So NYC mayor gets off scot free on corruption charges because he’s a mayor and needs to do mayor things (ICE helper). How are they justifying this?
He stood against them.
The states right’s people are slobbering on Trumps boots.
