Rep. Clay Higgins (R-La.) on Wednesday moved to force a vote on a resolution to censure Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-N.J.), who faces charges resulting from a clash with officials at an immigrant detention center.
The measure, which spans three pages, calls for McIver to be censured and removed from the House Homeland Security Committee.
The move from Higgins came the same day the House broke for a weeks-long August recess, meaning the matter will not be dealt with until September. Under House rules, leadership must act on the resolution within two legislative days, either staging a vote on it, motioning to refer it to committee or motioning to table it.
It remains unclear how Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) will handle the matter. The House has censured 28 members in its history, with the most recent being Rep. Al Green (D-Texas) in March after he shouted and waved his cane in the air during President Trump’s first joint address to Congress of his second term.
McIver pushed back on Higgins’s resolution, calling the Louisiana Republican “a bigot who wants to be back in the news.”
“Rs just shut down the House floor early and left to avoid confronting their president’s relationship with Epstein. Now they want us to believe they’re doing something when they’re really running home to hide,” McIver wrote in a thread on X.
“This resolution aims to kick me off the committee that presides over the Department of Homeland Security and shame me for doing the oversight work that is my job. Good luck, Clay.” she added.
McIver stands accused of assaulting law enforcement with her forearms during a chaotic clash that ensued after U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers began to arrest Newark, N.J., Mayor Ras Baraka (D) outside a New Jersey immigration detention facility in May. McIver was visiting the facility with a group of elected officials.
McIver has disputed that she assaulted anyone, and footage of the scrum shows her raising her arms as she’s jostled among the competing factions.
The crime carries a significant penalty – as much as 16 years in prison if McIver is convicted.
House Homeland Security Committee members like McIver, as well as other Democrats, have made a point of visiting detention facilities as the Trump administration seeks to increase immigration arrests after Trump promised the largest mass deportation effort in U.S. history.
The Department of Homeland Security has since tried to limit lawmaker visits, something Democratic members said was designed to block oversight.
Prosecutors then led by interim U.S. Attorney for New Jersey Alina Habba received significant scrutiny for bringing charges against Baraka that they later dropped.
U.S. District Judge Andre Espinosa in a Wednesday hearing said the arrest suggested a “worrisome misstep” by the New Jersey’s U.S. attorney’s office, noting the “apparent rush” in bringing the case that culminated in the government’s “embarrassing” retraction of the charge.
