Ras Baraka, mayor of Newark, New Jersey, faces up to 30 days in jail and a $500 fine if convicted following his arrest at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility last week, Bloomberg News reported on Monday.
Baraka, who is currently running for New Jersey governor, "was charged with a state trespassing offense occurring on property in federal jurisdiction, according to a transcript released Monday of a court hearing held virtually on Friday night," said the report.
Alina Habba, the personal Donald Trump attorney currently serving as acting U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey, suggested the Justice Department would go through with charges on Friday, saying in a post to X, "The Mayor of Newark, Ras Baraka, committed trespass and ignored multiple warnings from Homeland Security Investigations to remove himself from the ICE detention center in Newark, New Jersey this afternoon. 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."
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The arrest occurred during a larger protest of Delaney Hall, a for-profit detention facility that has become ICE's biggest lockup center on the East Coast. New Jersey politicians say the facility's existence in Newark violates state laws.
Telling his side of the story last week, Baraka denied breaking any laws and claims he is the victim of political targeting.
“After they told us to leave, we left and they began to try to arrest me ... They targeted me and came after me specifically and arrested me,” Baraka told CNN's Kaitlan Collins. “The reality is, Alina Habba wasn't there. She doesn't know what happened. I was there for over an hour in that space, and nobody ever told me to move."
He added that because the facility is privately run by the GEO Group, he wasn't on federal property, and that he has a right as mayor to inspect facilities in his city.
