US Rep. LaMonica McIver indicted on federal charges from skirmish at New
Jersey immigration center
[June 11, 2025]
By MIKE CATALINI
TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — U.S. Rep. LaMonica McIver was indicted Tuesday on
federal charges alleging she assaulted and interfered with immigration
officers outside a New Jersey detention center while Newark’s mayor was
being arrested after he tried to join a congressional oversight visit at
the facility.
Acting U.S. Attorney for New Jersey Alina Habba announced the grand jury
indictment in a post on X.
“While people are free to express their views for or against particular
policies, they must not do so in a manner that endangers law enforcement
and the communities those officers serve,” Habba said.
In a statement, McIver said the charges amounted to the Trump
administration trying to scare her.
“The facts of this case will prove I was simply doing my job and will
expose these proceedings for what they are: a brazen attempt at
political intimidation,” she said.
McIver, a Democrat, was charged in a complaint by Habba last month with
two assault charges stemming from the May 9 visit to Newark’s Delaney
Hall — a 1,000-bed, privately owned facility that Immigration and
Customs Enforcement uses as a detention center.
The indictment includes three counts of assaulting, resisting, impeding
and interfering with federal officials. Habba said two of the counts
carry a maximum sentence of up to eight years in prison. A third has a
maximum sentence of one year.
McIver's lawyer, former U.S. Attorney for New Jersey Paul Fishman, said
in a statement that they would challenge the allegations “head-on” in
court.
“The legal process will expose this prosecution for what it truly is --
political retaliation against a dedicated public servant who refuses to
shy away from her oversight responsibilities,” Fishman said.
The indictment is the latest development in a legal-political drama that
has seen President Donald Trump’s administration take Democratic
officials from New Jersey’s largest city to court, tapping into the
president’s immigration crackdown and Democrats’ efforts to respond. The
prosecution of McIver is a rare federal criminal case against a sitting
member of Congress for allegations other than fraud or corruption.
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At the same visit that resulted in McIver’s charges, Newark Mayor Ras
Baraka was arrested on a trespassing charge, which was later dropped.
Baraka is suing Habba over what he said was a malicious prosecution.
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, where other people
had been protesting. She and uniformed officials go through the gate,
and she joins others shouting that 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 police 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 then tried to
restrain the agent by grabbing him.
The indictment says she placed her arms around the mayor to block his
arrest and repeats the charges that she slammed her forearm into an
agent and grabbed the agent.
New Jersey Reps. Bonnie Watson Coleman and Rob Menendez had joined
McIver at the detention center that day. They and other Democrats have
criticized the arrest and disputed the charges as well.
By law, members of Congress are authorized to go into federal
immigration facilities as part of their oversight powers, even without
notice. Congress passed a 2019 appropriations bill that spelled out the
authority.
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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