(Bloomberg) – Ras Baraka, the mayor of Newark, New Jersey, was arrested on Friday when he protested in a controversial private detention facility that is expected to play a key role in President Donald Trump's plans for mass deportation of immigrants.
Baraka “committed a violation and ignored several warnings from Homeland Security research to remove itself” of the detention facility in Newark, according to a post on X by Alina Habba, Interim -Mamerican lawyer in New Jersey.
“He was certainly arrested and fascinated,” said Susan Garofalo, a press representative for the city of Newark, in an interview. It was not immediately clear with which indictment Baraka can be confronted and when he may appear in the Federal Court in Newark.
The arrest escalates an impasse between the Trump administration and Baraka about a facility of 1,000 beds known as Delaney Hall operated by Geo Group Inc. Baraka, who will be protested in the Democratic Primary for the Governor of New Jersey next month, has protested several times in the facility, and the city has sued the US to block its use.
Newark has charged to prevent Geo Group from reopening the facility and claims that the company has no valid permits. On 1 May the company started prisoners in Delaney Hall, near Newark Liberty International Airport, where the government could organize deportation flights.
Baraka criticized Geo Group because he refused to let city inspectors in and made his impasse a central point in his campaign for Governor with the company. In an interview, he accused the company of benefit from Trump's Roundup of the kind of immigrants that Newark built, whose 304,000 inhabitants make the most populated city of New Jersey.
“It is very clear to me, it is clear what happens here,” said Baraka. “They benefit from the downfall of others.”
The spokesperson for Geo Group said that Delaney Hall has a valid certificate of occupancy rate, meets all “contracted health and safety requirements” and for years housed.
-With help from Michael Smith.
(Updates with background about Baraka in the last paragraph.)
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