More About Congresswoman Lamonica Mciver
After a confrontation outside an immigration detention facility in New Jersey, US Representative Congresswoman LaMonica McIver, a Democrat, was charged by the state’s federal prosecutor on Monday with assaulting federal authorities. When McIver visited the detention facility on May 9 with two other Democratic members of the New Jersey congressional delegation, she was charged “for assaulting, impeding, and interfering with law enforcement, ” according to a social media post by interim US attorney Alina Habba“
“Politicians or not, nobody is above the law,” Habba declared in a statement. Regardless of who you are, this office’s responsibility is to impartially enforce the law. We will now allow the legal system to function. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agents “created an unnecessary and unsafe confrontation,” according to Congresswoman LaMonica McIver, who accused federal law enforcement on Monday of inflaming the situation.
“The accusations against me are entirely political; they are intended to criminalize and discourage legislative oversight, and they misrepresent and distort my actions,” she stated Habba also declared that her agency was dropping a misdemeanor trespassing case against Newark’s Democratic mayor, Ras Baraka, whose arrest sparked the altercation with federal officials.
As he attempted to join the congressional delegation at Delaney Hall, a privately operated federal immigration detention facility, Baraka, the mayor of New Jersey’s largest city and a contender for the Democratic ticket for governor, was detained and accused of trespassing.
Before being appointed to the position, Habba was Trump’s personal attorney. She said she had dropped the accusation “for the sake of moving forward” and offered to tour the facility with Baraka in person, saying the government had “nothing to hide.”
The head of the Department of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, wrote on X that McIver would be charged after a “thorough review of the video footage and an investigation. “People have shared body camera video that shows a chaotic scene outside the facility’s chain-link fence while the mayor is being arrested. While the fight is going on, Congresswoman Lamonica McIver walks through the gate and seems to make touch with a police officer wearing fatigues and a face mask. It’s not clear if the contact was meant to happen, happened by accident, or was caused by getting stuck in the scrum.
At the same time, video from people who were there seems to show that the government’s claim that Congress members stormed the building is false.Congresswoman Lamonica McIver lawyer, Paul Fishman, said that charging the congresswoman was “spectacularly inappropriate” and that she had the “right and responsibility to see how Ice is treating detainees.”Fishman, who used to be the US attorney for the District of New Jersey, said in a statement, “Instead of making that inspection easier, Ice agents chose to turn what should have been a peaceful situation into chaos.”
On Monday, Democrats and legal activists were shocked by the congresswoman’s arrest. They saw it as an attempt to stop lawmakers from keeping an eye on things and silence opposition to the Trump administration’s immigration policies, which have included raids and deportations without due process. Monday, the leaders of the Democratic Party in the House said in a joint statement that the charges were “extreme, morally bankrupt, and [lacking] any basis in law or fact.”
The Democrats said, “There is no credible evidence that Rep. McIver engaged in any criminal activity.” They pointed out that after the incident, Trump administration officials gave the lawmakers a tour of the facility, which they said would not have been allowed “had she done anything wrong.”
On Monday, Bakara said he was glad that the charges against him had been dropped, but he would “continue to advocate for the humane treatment of detainees” and “continue to press the facility to ensure that it is compliant with City of Newark codes and regulations.”
He also made it clear that he supported McIver, whom he called a “Newark daughter.”
“I’m sure she’ll be proven right,” he said.
The charges against a sitting member of Congress were “more suited for authoritarianism than American democracy,” said Mike Zamore, national head of policy and government affairs at the ACLU, and Amol Sinha, executive director of ACLU-NJ
They wrote, “If the Trump administration can go after elected officials who stand up to its extreme agenda, it can happen to any of us.”
“We want the charges against Rep. McIver to be dropped, and we urge her fellow Congress members to do the same.”
