Politics
BREAKING: DOJ To Charge Democrat Rep. Over Alleged Assault On ICE Agents
One of the Democratic U.S. House members present during an ugly scuffle between ICE officials and other far-left politicians will be charged with assault, the local U.S. attorney’s office is set to announce Friday, according to the New Jersey Globe.
Congresswoman LaMonica McIver (D-NJ) will face charges for laying her hands on ICE agents fighting to keep a cadre of angry Democrats at bay while they attempted to enter the Delaney Hall detention center in Newark, New Jersey. Her arrest comes after Ras Baraka, the city’s mayor, was cuffed at the scene over similar charges.
McIver may even surrender as early as this afternoon, a source told the Globe.
On Friday, May 9, McIver, Baraka, and several other Democratic House members attempted to enter the Delaney Hall center to assess whether illegal immigrants were being subjected to substandard conditions of confinement. They were joined by Reps. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-NJ) and Rob Menendez (D-NJ), the son of disgraced former Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ).
Partway through the struggle, Baraka was arrested for allegedly ignoring orders by ICE agents to disperse, though he has claimed he was following orders they had given. Bodycam footage released by ICE appears to show McIver becoming physical as Baraka touched chests with officers, then trying to physically protect the Democratic mayor as he walked away.
Republicans who have viewed the footage have accused McIver of “body slamming” one of the ICE officers, an allegation denied by a spokesperson for Watson Coleman.
“We’ve reviewed the body cam footage shared by DHS which confirms what we’ve said from the beginning: ICE agents put their hands on Members of Congress and arrested the Mayor of Newark on public property,” they told the Globe. “Nobody was ‘body slammed,’ nobody ‘assaulted’ any agents, and this footage confirms that.”
Gov. Phil Murphy, a Democrat, stayed mostly mum on Friday, saying he had “no comment on the specifics,” though he defended the right of McIver and other New Jersey lawmakers to exercise oversight authority of federal facilities.
“LaMonica, Bonnie Watson Coleman, and Rob Menendez have absolute rights to inspect those facilities,” Murphy said. “And if [a federal charge] goes ahead, I think it’s just as I said about Ras Baraka: outrageous.”
WATCH:
Although not a declared member of the infamous far-left “Squad,” McIver is a well-known rabble-rouser in the halls of power. She laid into President Donald Trump and Elon Musk shortly after they announced the creation of DOGE, the cost-cutting agency that slashed federal spending in record time.
“We will not rest, we will fight back! We’ve been out here a long time, and goddamnit shut down the city!” she screamed during a February rally.
WATCH:
The incident was a flashpoint, highlighting Democrats’ growing sense of urgency as well as increasing pressure from their base to take greater action against the Trump administration’s mass deportation program.
Party leaders spent weeks defending Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the so-called Maryland man deported to El Salvador, before quietly dropping the crusade after a steady drip of revelations about his violent past and likely connection to the MS-13 gang.