NEWARK, NJ — Following a scuffle with ICE outside of a detention center that led to his arrest last month, Mayor Ras Baraka (D-NJ) has filed a lawsuit against officials appointed by the Trump Administration.
In the lawsuit filed on Wednesday, Baraka alleges he was wrongly arrested for trespassing without cause and maliciously prosecuted on May 9, when he and several officials were outside of a privately-run immigration detention center in Newark. The encounter with Department of Homeland Security and ICE also led to the arrest of Congresswoman LaMonica McIver (D-NJ), who was accused of assaulting an ICE agent.
On Friday, Baraka told Democracy Now!, “They humiliated me. They cuffed me. They dragged me in the car, took me to the cell.”
Baraka said the arrest was “completely unwarranted.”
The lawsuit names Alina Habba, the acting U.S. attorney in New Jersey, a former personal lawyer to Trump, and Ricky Patel, a DHS official in Newark, who allegedly ordered the arrest.
Baraka is currently running for governor of New Jersey.
More on the lawsuit and confrontation with ICE in New Jersey.
