Newark Mayor Ras Baraka advised Alina Habba to ‘seek more accurate information’ following a claim from the US Attorney for New Jersey. The claim suggested that Baraka disregarded warnings to vacate an ICE facility before his arrest.
On Friday, intense video footage captured scenes of people in a frenzy, rushing outside the facility’s gates, just before Baraka was taken into custody and led away by law enforcement.
Upon his release, Mayor Baraka, who is also a gubernatorial candidate for New Jersey, spoke with CNN. He addressed Habba’s assertion that he neglected ‘several warnings’ from Homeland Security Investigations to exit the premises.
When host Kaitlan Collins asked if this was true, Baraka replied: ‘Well, absolutely not. I mean, the reality is Alina Habba wasn’t there.’ He then told her to ‘get some better information.
‘She doesn’t know what happened. Clearly, that is not the context of what happened,’ Baraka explained.
He said he was at the facility for an hour and ‘nobody told me to leave that place.’
‘Somebody from Homeland Security came in the end and began to escalate the situation, and we wind up being where we are today. And that’s, frankly, the extent of it.’
Baraka reiterated both that he did nothing illegal and Habba wasn’t present for his arrest.
DailyMail.com has reached out to Habba’s office for comment.
Baraka was released around 8 p.m. after being accused of trespassing and ignoring warnings to leave the Delaney Hall facility.
Stepping out of an SUV with flashing emergency lights, he told waiting supporters: ‘The reality is this: I didn’t do anything wrong.’
The mayor said he could not speak about his case, citing a promise he made to lawyers and the judge. But he voiced full-throated support for everyone living in his community, immigrants included.
‘All of us here, every last one of us, I don´t care what background you come from, what nationality, what language you speak,’ Baraka said, ‘at some point we have to stop these people from causing division between us.’
Linda Baraka, the mayor´s wife, accused the federal government of targeting her husband.
‘They didn´t arrest anyone else. They didn´t ask anyone else to leave. They wanted to make an example out of the mayor,’ she said, adding that she had not been allowed to see him.
The mayor was dramatically arrested at an ICE detention facility in New Jersey on Friday.
Officers were seen shoving protesters out of the way amid the chaos. Rep LaMonica McIver who was at the facility claimed she and her colleagues were assaulted by ICE officers.
Following his 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 his ‘immediate release’. Baraka was released a few hours following his arrest.
The mayor claims the detention center has been illegally housing migrants amid Trump’s mass deportation push.
The mayor claimed the jail has a contract with the city and cannot be housing migrants inside.
Last week he attempted to break in, vowing to turn up daily until he was let in.
A spokesperson for the company which operates the facility confirmed to DailyMail.com that migrants have been housed at the facility for a week.
‘Delaney Hall houses illegal aliens. It is not a family detention facility, nor does it house minors,’ a spokesperson told DailyMail.com.
But the building’s owners, GEO Group, did not receive permits or a valid certificate of occupancy to house 1,000 migrants a day, The New York Times reported.
A GEO Group employee had chained the front gates shut on Monday and fire officials gave them three citations for code violations, the Times said.
‘They’re keeping us out through the gates and the fences and all this other kind of stuff, but we’re going to come down here every day and we’re going to get in one way or the other,’ Baraka told the Times.
‘We want them to follow our rules, follow our laws.’
GEO Group accepted a 15-year $1billion contract with ICE in February, agreeing to hold migrants while they wait for deportation.
Delaney Hall has previously been used as a jail, halfway house, and migrant detention center and is located near the Newark Airport, making it easy to ship migrants back to their native countries.
The building has not been used in over a year and with the renovations on top of it, the City of Newark claimed the occupancy certificate would be invalid, the Times reported.
GEO Group spokesperson, Tricia McLaughlin, told The Times that Baraka is ‘more than welcome to enter the facility as long as he follows security protocols like everyone else.’
‘He keeps refusing to do so, presumably in an effort to stage press opportunities to help him in his bid for governor,’ the spokesperson said.
Another spokesperson, Christopher Ferreira, told the Times Baraka’s action was a ‘publicity stunt’.
He said it was an ‘unfortunate example of a politicized campaign by sanctuary city and open-borders politicians in New Jersey to interfere with the federal government’s efforts to arrest, detain and deport dangerous criminal illegal aliens in accordance with established federal law.’
DailyMail.com has contacted the mayor’s office for comment.
