US Rep. LaMonica McIver to be arraigned on assault charges stemming from
immigration center visit
[June 25, 2025]
By MIKE CATALINI
U.S. Rep. LaMonica McIver is set to be arraigned on federal charges
Wednesday, accused of assaulting and interfering with immigration
officers outside a New Jersey detention center during a congressional
oversight visit at the facility. She has said she plans to fight the
charges.
McIver, a Democrat, was charged in a complaint by interim U.S. Attorney
Alina Habba, a Republican appointed by President Donald Trump, following
the May 9 visit to Newark’s Delaney Hall, a privately owned, 1,000-bed
facility that Immigration and Customs Enforcement uses as a detention
center.
This month she was indicted on three counts of assaulting, resisting,
impeding and interfering with federal officials. Habba said two counts
carry a maximum sentence of up to eight years in prison. The third has a
maximum of one year.
McIver’s lawyer, former U.S. Attorney for New Jersey Paul Fishman, said
in a statement that she would challenge the allegations “head-on” in
court.
The indictment is the latest development in a legal-political drama that
has seen the Trump administration take Democratic officials from New
Jersey’s largest city to court amid the president's ongoing immigration
crackdown and Democrats’ efforts to respond. The prosecution is a rare
federal criminal case against a sitting member of Congress for
allegations other than fraud or corruption.
During the same visit to the detention center, Newark Mayor Ras Baraka
was arrested on a trespassing charge that was later dropped. Baraka is
suing Habba over what he called a malicious prosecution.
A nearly two-minute video clip released by the Homeland Security
Department shows McIver at the facility inside a chain-link fence just
before Baraka's arrest on other side of the barrier, where other people
were protesting. McIver and uniformed officials go through the gate, and
she joins others shouting that they should circle the mayor.
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Congresswoman Rep. LaMonica McIver, D-N.J., exits the grounds at
Delaney Hall, an ICE detention facility, May 9, 2025, in Newark, N.J,
(AP Photo/Angelina Katsanis, File)
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.”
It is not clear from police bodycam video if the contact was
intentional, incidental or the result of jostling in the chaotic
scene.
The complaint alleges that she “slammed” her forearm into an agent
and then tried to restrain the agent by grabbing him.
The indictment also says she placed her arms around the mayor to try
to stop his arrest and says again that she slammed her forearm into
and grabbed an agent.
Democrats including New Jersey Reps. Bonnie Watson Coleman and Rob
Menendez, who were with McIver at the detention center that day,
have criticized the arrest and disputed the charges.
Members of Congress are legally authorized to go into federal
immigration facilities as part of their oversight powers, even
without notice. Congress passed a 2019 appropriations bill spelling
out that authority.
McIver, 39, 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 was president of the Newark City Council from
2022 to 2024 and worked in the city’s public schools before that.
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