Ras J. Baraka arrested him in the same place where, in recent months, he starred in speeches along with a congregation of activists and neighbors annoying for the opening of the first migrant detention center of the Trump era. The mayor of Newark, the largest city in New Jersey and part of the New York Metropolitan Area, was arrested by agents of the Customs Immigration and Control Service (ICE) on Friday, May 9, on the outskirts of Delaney Hall, and could face a trial in July for the search charge. But his arrest itself – which has won greater Democratic sympathy in the state and could underpin his nomination as an aspiring governor – is only one more evidence than the community lives, and what is coming. This was made by Baraka five hours after the event, once he was released: “That, ladies and gentlemen, is authoritarian.”
“We cannot arrest people simply because they disagree with us,” said the mayor this week on the outskirts of a federal court in Newark. “We cannot point to people because their political opinions are different from ours. We cannot submit people, take their photos, police sheets and fingerprints because we believe that, in some way, they oppose our positions.”
Baraka, a 55 -year -old poet and playwright, accrued Mayor number 40 of his native Newark, is not only known for his “progressive” inclination and his “futuristic agenda” – it is said that he reduced unemployment and crime, has promoted access to housing, the use of internet technology and access in the community – but for his frontal position against the anti -immigrant agenda of the anti -immigrant. Trump Among his promises to protect Newark’s undocumented community, Baraka said he would do everything at his disposal to keep Delaney Hall out of service, insisting that the detention center was not “welcome.”
However, the center in the hands of the GEO group, a company that signed with ICE a contract of 60 million dollars annually for the next 15 years, received its first detainees at the beginning of May, as the authorities had promised. This is the second detention center in New Jersey, with more than 1,000 beds. It also has a strategic location: it is less than three kilometers from a main airport, which guarantees the rapid transfer of the detainees facing deportation.
New Jersey organizations, politicians and activists have denounced the authorization of this center to house migrants, not only because of the stress that it now causes in the community, but because, apparently, Geo Group did not obtain the municipal permits required before reopening the facilities. More than once, Baraka said he would take them to justice. “If you try to do something to violate the law, we will take them to court,” he said in one of the protests carried out outside the place. But the opposite has happened, and it has been the mayor who has had to appear before a judge.
In the midst of a tumult on the outskirts of Delaney Hall, which struggled so that they did not take it, federal agents loaded against Baraka, who says he had received permits to enter the facilities. The members of the Bonnie Watson Coleman, Rob Menéndez and Lamonica Mciver Congress were also present at the site, who had arrived with the aim of visiting the facilities. Baraka was not only allowed to accompany them, but an agent was heard: “The congressmen are different.” Then they warned him that he could be stopped. Baraka always insisted that he was not inside the center. “I am not on their property. They can’t go outside and stop.” Even so, the officers loaded with him.
The event has generated controversy at the highest levels. Tricia McLaughlin, deputy secretary of the Department of National Security, said that “the mayor has been informed that he is more than welcome to enter the installation, as long as he follows the security protocols like everyone else,” but that this week’s incident is nothing more than a “bizarre political maneuver.” The Republican President of the House of Representatives, Mike Johnson, denounced the alleged “show”, and said that they were taking place conversations about possible disciplinary measures for the three Democratic congressmen involved.
Baraka, on the other hand, insists that he is not to blame for what happened. “What is happening now, in this country, everyone should be afraid,” he said. “They are using courts. They are using everything else to justify what they are doing.” On Thursday he appeared before the court accused of the crime of search, whose position could imply a maximum penalty of 30 days in prison. Rahul Agawal, one of his lawyers, said the defense hoped to request the dismissal of the charges, since it was a “selective accusation”, only attributed to the Democratic mayor, although there were more people involved in the incident. Another of his lawyers, Raymond Brown, slipped an irony, claiming that his client did not pave the establishment, as did those who broke into the Capitol on January 6, 2021. “That is assault,” he said. “He didn’t.”
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