A heated altercation outside a newly reopened immigration detention center in New Jersey may lead to additional arrests of Democratic politicians, according to an administration official speaking to Daily Mail.
Democratic Newark Mayor Ras Baraka was arrested at the facility on Friday after a dramatic clash with immigration enforcement officers.
Tricia McLaughlin, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, mentioned that further arrests could occur, as an investigation into the matter is currently underway.
Footage acquired by Daily Mail shows Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-N.J.) engaged in pushing and forcefully shoving at least one law enforcement officer standing guard at Delaney Hall, the Newark detention facility that was recently reopened.
‘Arrests are certainly on the table for anyone who assaults a police officer – members of Congress are not above the law,’ McLaughlin told Daily Mail.
President Donald Trump’s border czar Tom Homan warned elected Democratic officials that if they ‘cross that line’ from protesting to impeding, they will face consequences.
‘They can stand out and scream all they want,’ Homan said, but claimed any other actions will be treated appropriately. ‘They can trespass, they’ll be arrested. If they impede, they will be arrested.’
Baraka was detained for ‘trespassing,’ according to former Counselor to the President and U.S. Attorney for New Jersey Alina Habba, who also said the mayor ‘ignored multiple warnings’ by Homeland Security Investigations to leave.
Dramatic footage showed people frantically scrambling outside the gates of the Delaney facility, before Baraka was arrested and escorted away by police.
Officers were seen shoving protesters out of the way amid the chaos – but other footage also shows the protesters shoving and getting physical with those tasked with guarding and working the facility.
Rep. McIver claims she and her colleagues were assaulted by ICE officers.
House Democratic Whip Katherine Clark says that McIver and fellow New Jersey Democratic Reps. Bonnie Watson Coleman and Rob Menendez were at the facility to conduct congressional oversight of activity in their state.
Following Baraka’s detention, Habba said: ‘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.’
Governor Phil Murphy said he was ‘outraged’ by the arrest and called for the mayor’s ‘immediate release’.
Baraka was released just a few hours after he was taken into custody.
‘I think that we should let viewers know there will likely be more coming,’ McLaughlin told CNN on Saturday morning.
‘We actually have body camera footage of some of these members of Congress assaulting our ICE enforcement officers, including body-slamming a female ICE officer,’ she added.
She didn’t rule out there being a member of Congress who could be arrested in connection to Friday’s events.
Homan told Fox News Live Saturday anchor Alicia Acuna that the mayor ‘isn’t very smart’ after he said outside the facility that the Democrats there were conducting ‘oversight.’
He said opposing and protesting ICE deportations is fine, but impeding their operations crosses a line that could lead to arrests – even of elected officials.
‘There’s a proper way to conduct oversight,’ Homan said. ‘You don’t break into the facility when a bus full of criminals are being, you know, brought into that facility.’
‘This isn’t about due process, this isn’t about constitutional rights, this is about politics. They simply don’t want these people removed from this country,’ he said of the violent demonstrators.
‘They don’t want immigration enforcement in this country and that’s what it’s all about.’
Homan has long slammed any obstruction and impediment of ICE and other immigration officials and agents carrying out the mission directed by President Trump.
‘They can stand out and scream all they want,’ Homan said. ‘They can trespass, they’ll be arrested. If they impede, they will be arrested. If they knowingly harbor and conceal, they’ll be arrested.’
‘We’re going [to] do this job for the American people.’
