Newark, New Jersey – A federal public prosecutor said that the Mayor of Nark Ras Barka was arrested on Friday at the Federal Immigration Detention Center, where he was protesting his opening this week.
Alina Habba, the interim American lawyer in New Jersey, said on the social platform X that Baraca committed infringement and ignoring warnings from internal security personnel to leave Dylani Hall, a detention facility run by the Gio Prisoners Group.
Haba said that Baraca “chose to ignore the law” added that he had been detained.
Parka, a democratic running to succeed the state’s limited governor for a while, adopted the battle with the Trump administration on illegal immigration.
He strongly pushed to build and open a 1,000 -bed detention center, on the pretext that he should not be allowed to open due to the construction permit problems.
“I am angry with the arrest of the New Arrek mayor Ras Barka earlier this afternoon outside the Dylani Hall in Newark,” the governor of New Jersey Phil Murphy said in a statement.
Witnesses said that the arrest came after Barka tried to join a scheduled tour of the facility with three members of the Congress delegation in New Jersey, actors Robert Mindez, Lymonica Macver and Bonnie Watson Coleman.
The Mayor of Nark is speaking to the demonstrators outside Dylani Hall, a recent reopened immigration detention center in Newark, New Jersey, on Wednesday, May 7, 2025.
AP Photo/Seth Wenig
When Federal officials prevented his entry, a hot argument broke out, according to Ferry Martinez, activist in the New Jersey coalition for migrant justice. She continued even after Barka returned to the general side of the gates.
“There was screaming and paying,” Martinez said. “Then the officers gathered Parka. They threw one of the organizers on the ground. They put the parkon handcuffs and put it in an unique car.”
In a statement, the Ministry of Internal Security said that the legislators did not request a tour of the facility, unlike the accounts of the witnesses. The administration also said that, as a bus carrying the detainees, it was entering the facility, a group of demonstrators, including two members of the US House of Representatives, stormed the gate and broke the detention facility.
She said that MININDES, Watson Coleman, and a number of demonstrators were “currently” baked in a guard hut “in the facility.
The assistant, Secretary Tricia McLeulin, in the statement, reported that he was called “behind a strange political trick” and saying that it endangers the safety of the agents and the safety of the detainees.
“Members of Congress are not above the law and they cannot storm detention facilities illegally. If these members requested a tour, we would have facilitated a tour of the facility.”
In a video of a joint quarrel with the Associated Press, a federal official can be heard in a jacket with the slogan of security investigations to the homeland as he told Baraka that he could not join a tour of the facility because “you are not a member of Congress.”
Then Baraca left the safe area, where she joined the demonstrators on the general side of the gate. The video showed that he is talking through the gate to a man wearing a suit, he told him: “They are talking about returning to arrest you.”
“I am not in their property, they cannot go out on the street and arrest me,” Barka answered.
Minutes after a minute of ice factors, some wear face covers, surround Barraka and others on the overall side of the gate. When the demonstrators shouted, “shame”, Park was dragged again through the security gate in the handcuffs.
An email and a phone message with the Mayor’s Communications Office was not immediately answered on Friday afternoon. “We are actively watching and we will provide more details when available,” said Kabir Moss, the spokesman for the Ruler’s Campaign in Parka.
The two -storey building next to the province’s prison was previously working as a house in the middle of the road.
Then in February, ICE gave a 15 -year contract to GEO Group Inc. To operate the Newark detention center. GEO valued the contract for one billion dollars, which is an extraordinary long and large agreement with ICE.
This announcement was part of President Donald Trump’s plans to sharply increase detention beds throughout the country from a budget of about 41,000 beds this year.
Baraka filed a lawsuit against Geo Group shortly after the deal was announced.
Geo described the contract with Dylani Hall during her profit call with shareholders on Wednesday, where CEO David Donahu said that he is expected to generate revenues of more than $ 60 million annually. He said that the facility began the withdrawal process on May 1.
Hall said that the activation of the facility and another in Michigan would increase the total capacity under a contract with ICE from about 20,000 beds to about 23,000.
In its statement, the Ministry of National Security said that the facility has appropriate permits and inspections.
Read the full statement of the ruler, Phil Murphy, on arrest:
“I am angry at the arrest of the Nark Mayor Ras Barka earlier this afternoon outside the Dylani Hall in Newark.
Over the past few months, Mayor Parka, as well as defenders, leaders of faith, and members of our delegation in Congress, protested the opening of the special immigration detention center in Newark. Four years ago, I was proud to sign a law prohibiting the special immigration centers in New Jersey. Only last week, my administration was leading the battle to defend this law before the Court of Appeal in the third district.
Mayor Baraka is an ideal government employee who always stands for our most vulnerable neighbors. I call for his immediate release by federal law enforcement. “
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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