Federal prosecutors alleged Democratic Rep. LaMonica McIver of New Jersey pushed and grabbed officers while attempting to block the arrest of the Newark mayor outside an immigration detention facility, according to charges in court papers unsealed on Tuesday.
In an eight-page complaint, interim U.S. Attorney Alina Habba’s office said McIver was protesting the removal of Newark Mayor Ras Baraka from a congressional tour of the Delaney Hall detention center in Newark on May 9.
The complaint says she attempted to stop the arrest of the mayor and pushed into agents for Homeland Security Investigations and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. She faces two counts of assaulting, resisting and impeding an officer.
McIver has denied any wrongdoing and has accused federal agents of escalating the situation by arresting the mayor. She denounced the charge as “purely political” and said prosecutors are distorting her actions in an effort to deter legislative oversight.
Habba had charged Baraka with trespassing after his arrest but dismissed the allegation on Monday when she said in a social media post she instead was charging the congresswoman.
Prosecuting McIver is a rare federal criminal case against a sitting member of Congress for allegations other than fraud or corruption.
The case instantly taps into a broader and more consequential struggle between a Trump administration engaged in overhauling immigration policy and a Democratic party scrambling to respond.
Within minutes of Habba’s announcement, McIver’s Democratic colleagues cast the prosecution as an infringement on lawmakers’ official duties to serve their constituents and an effort to silence their opposition to an immigration policy that helped propel the president back into power but now has emerged as divisive fault line in American political discourse.
Members of Congress are authorized by law to go into federal immigration facilities as part of their oversight powers, even without advance notice. Congress passed a 2019 appropriations bill that spelled out the authority.
A nearly two-minute clip released by the Homeland Security Department shows McIver on the facility side of a chain-link fence just before the arrest of the mayor on the street side of the fence. She and uniformed officials go through the gate and she joins others shouting they should circle the mayor. The video shows McIver in a tightly packed group of people and officers. At one point her left elbow and then her right elbow push into an officer wearing a dark face covering and an olive green uniform emblazoned with the word “Police” on it.
It isn’t clear from bodycam video whether that contact was intentional, incidental or a result of jostling in the chaotic scene.
The complaint says she “slammed” her forearm into an agent and then tried to restrain the agent by grabbing him.
Tom Homan, President Donald Trump’s top border adviser, said during an interview on Fox News Tuesday “she broke the law and we’re going to hold her accountable”
“You can’t put hands on an ICE employee. we’re not going to tolerate it,” he said.
House Democratic leaders decried the criminal case against their colleague in a lengthy statement, calling the charge “extreme” and “morally bankrupt” and lacking “any basis in law or fact.
On Tuesday Democratic lawmakers pushed back against the charges.
New Jersey Democratic Rep. Frank Pallone called the arrest “outrageous” and said the lawmakers “were met by unidentified masked agents with loaded weapons, and now they face charges? The department of justice and ICE are weaponizing this place.”
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said Tuesday during a Congressional hearing that lawmakers can conduct oversight but accused those who visited the Newark detention facility of showing up with a “mob” intending to break in and attack law enforcement.
New Jersey Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman, who along with Rep. Rob Menendez had joined McIver at the detention center, told reporters Tuesday that her and Menendez’s attorneys are scheduled to meet Wednesday with Habba’s office.
“That’s the first contact that we’ve actually had from her so we don’t know what she has intended, but we’re ready for whenever it might be,” she said.
Watson Coleman added that Habba’s office has indicated that charges are still on the table.
“It’s a possibility and it may be a probability. We shall see,” she said.
A message seeking comment Tuesday was left with Habba’s office.
McIver, 38, first came to Congress in September in a special election after the death of Rep. Donald Payne Jr. left a vacancy in the 10th District. She was then elected to a full term in November. A Newark native, she served as the president of the Newark City Council from 2022 to 2024 and worked in the city’s public schools before that.
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Associated Press writers Matt Brown, Joey Cappelletti and Rebecca Santana in Washington contributed.
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