The Trump administration is investigating and considering arresting Democratic members of Congress involved in a scrum at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in New Jersey on Friday, according to a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security.
Democratic New Jersey Reps. LaMonica McIver, Bonnie Watson Coleman, and Rob Menendez were there to inspect the ICE facility, as is their legal right. The facility, Delaney Hall, had recently been reopened by a private prison company, GEO Group. Newark Mayor Ras Baraka was arrested there on a trespassing charge; he has since been released, according to CNN.
DHS on Saturday accused McIver of “ASSAULTING an ICE agent,” sharing video of the incident on social platform X. DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin confirmed to Rolling Stone on Saturday that an investigation is “ongoing,” but did not add more on the current stage of the probe.
“There will likely be more arrests coming,” McLaughlin said on CNN Saturday morning, “We actually have body camera footage of some of these members of Congress assaulting these ICE enforcement officers, including body-slamming a female ICE officer.”
The 26-second video published to X shows a chaotic scene, with McIver attempting to get through a crowd of law enforcement officers who are pushing people, almost like a mosh pit. The video includes a clip that has been slowed down to emphasize McIver apparently pushing an ICE agent, who appears to have stopped walking right in front of her near the gate. The video does not show any body-slamming.
“Yesterday, at Delaney Hall, I witnessed firsthand the chaos and cruelty that defines the Trump administration’s immigration policy,” McIver said in a statement. “As we have done before, we went to conduct lawful congressional oversight — to do our jobs and demand answers for our constituents. We were met with contempt, disrespect, and aggression from ICE.”
McIver accused the Trump administration of “roughing up members of Congress,” adding that the incident shows the president’s “blatant abuses of power.”
Sources in the Trump White House and Justice Department have for weeks been telling Rolling Stone how serious they are about potentially arresting and criminally charging certain Democratic elected officials, including mayors of sanctuary cities who they could target for trying to thwart Trump’s federal immigration crackdowns.
“The president thinks it’s important that we do not treat anyone, even Democrat politicians, as if they are above the law,” one of the Trump White House officials says.
Concerns about the rule of law aside, there are numerous longtime Democratic operatives and even some liberal lawmakers and senior aides on Capitol Hill who believe that Trump and his administration’s push to arrest elected Democrats will epically backfire on Trump, whose poll numbers have seriously sagged just a few months into his second presidency.
One Democratic lawmaker previously told Rolling Stone that if Trump’s federal authorities actually came for him or some of his colleagues for protesting or other matters, it would likely mean they’ve “hit the jackpot” with regards to grassroots fundraising, and that it would boost their national profile and popularity among liberal voters.
The scrum on Friday took place at Delaney Hall Detention Center, an 1,000-bed facility operated by GEO Group, a massive private prison company. The center was recently reopened amid opposition from immigrants’ rights groups. The city of Newark filed a lawsuit in April to stop occupancy and construction and allow the city to inspect the facility. Baraka has argued that the facility should not be allowed to open due to building permit issues.
In February, ICE awarded GEO Group a 15-year contract to run the facility. The private prison company says it expects the value of the contract to be roughly $1 billion.
A GEO Group subsidiary donated $1.3 million to Super PACs that supported Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign. GEO Group also contributed $500,000 to Trump’s inaugural committee in December.
“Members of Congress storming into a detention facility goes beyond a bizarre political stunt and puts the safety of our law enforcement agents and detainees at risk,” McLaughlin said in a press release Friday. “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.”
She similarly said on CNN Saturday morning, “Just because you are a member of Congress does not mean you can break the law, trespass, put law enforcement at risk, and storm the detention facility.”
“Contrary to a press statement put out by DHS, we did not “storm” the detention center,” Watson Coleman said in a statement. “The author of that press release was so unfamiliar with the facts on the ground that they didn’t even correctly count the number of Representatives present. We were exercising our legal oversight function as we have done at the Elizabeth Detention Center without incident.”
“Reopening Delaney Hall won’t make us safer and it won’t create an immigration system that is fair and secure for all families. ”A memo on the ICE website notes that members of Congress “are afforded special access to ICE facilities,” and do no not need to provide prior notice of their intent to visit such facilities to conduct oversight.
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