Newark, New Jersey, Mayor Ras Baraka, who was arrested for trespassing while protesting at a federal immigration facility last week, said Monday during a televised gubernatorial debate that his actions were “absolutely” an effective way to protest the president’s immigration clampdown.
Baraka has denied he did anything wrong despite federal authorities arresting him for trespassing at the Delaney Hall detention facility in Newark on Friday.
During Monday’s debate among Democrat candidates in New Jersey’s open governor’s race, he doubled down on the assertion he did nothing wrong.
“We haven’t interfered with federal law enforcement,” Baraka said early on in the debate when moderators turned their questioning to Friday’s incident at the ICE detention facility in Newark. “We didn’t go down there to protest. We actually went down there to have a press conference. And the Congress has oversight. And they began to exercise their oversight. It was escalated by Homeland Security. They made an arrest because they got a call to do so. And that’s what happened.”
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Baraka’s arrest occurred during a protest at Delaney Hall attended by three members of Congress, who said they were in attendance to perform their congressionally-mandated oversight duties related to federal detention facilities. The three lawmakers were outside the facility with a group of protesters when the gates opened to allow an ICE bus in. The lawmakers then rushed through the gates and past security, according to officials from the Department of Homeland Security.
The arrest came as activists had been calling for access to the facility for days, which is a privately run facility that was revamped as an immigration detention facility this year.
“We’re not asking for anything that’s incorrect. We ask them to obey our laws,” Baraka said after the incident. “To obey the policies and rules here in the city and the state of New Jersey, not to run roughshod over the Constitution of the United States, the Bill of Rights, the Fourth, the Fifth, the Fourteenth Amendment and everybody on this soil who deserves due process.”
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During Monday night’s debate, the other gubernatorial candidates were asked if they thought Baraka’s tactics were “effective” the same way he does and whether they would have done things differently. While, for the most part, all the candidates tip-toed around the question, instead choosing to tout their bona fides in supporting immigration and challenging President Donald Trump, some did express support for Baraka.
“I’m not saying I would do anything differently,” said Rep. Mikie Sherrill, the four-term Democrat representing the state’s 11th Congressional District. “I don’t think the mayor was trespassing. In talking to my congressional colleagues, he was invited in. They asked him to leave, he left, and then he got arrested.”
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“Ras didn’t do anything wrong,” Steve Fluop, the mayor of Jersey City and another candidate for New Jersey governor, said in direct response to the moderators’ question about whether they agreed with Baraka’s tactics.
The rest of the candidates did not directly answer the question before the moderators moved on to the next topic.
