US representative LaMonica McIver, a Democrat, was charged with assaulting federal agents after a clash outside an immigration detention center in New Jersey, the state’s federal prosecutor announced on Monday.
Alina Habba, interim US attorney, said in a post on social media that McIver was facing charges “for assaulting, impeding and interfering with law enforcement” when she visited the detention center along with two other Democratic members of the New Jersey congressional delegation on 9 May.
“No one is above the law – politicians or otherwise,” Habba said in a statement. “It is the job of this office to uphold justice impartially, regardless of who you are. Now we will let the justice system work.”
McIver on Monday accused federal law enforcement of escalating the situation, saying that it was the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agents who “created an unnecessary and unsafe confrontation”.
“The charges against me are purely political – they mischaracterise and distort my actions, and are meant to criminalise and deter legislative oversight,” she said.
At the same time, Habba announced her office was dismissing a misdemeanor trespassing charge against Ras Baraka, the Democratic mayor of Newark, whose arrest instigated the clash with federal agents.
Baraka, the mayor of New Jersey’s largest city and a candidate for the Democratic nomination for governor, was arrested and charged with trespassing as he sought to join the congressional delegation at Delaney Hall, a privately run federal immigration detention center.
Habba, who served as Trump’s personal lawyer before being named to the post, said she had dismissed the charge “for the sake of moving forward” and offered to personally accompany Baraka on a tour of the facility, declaring the government has “nothing to hide”.
Kristi Noem, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, wrote on X that McIver was being charged after a “thorough review of the video footage and an investigation”.
Body camera footage released by the agency and shared with Fox News shows a chaotic scene outside the facility’s chain-link fence as the mayor is arrested. During the scuffle, McIver walks through the gate and appears to make contact with a law enforcement officer wearing fatigues and a face covering. It is unclear if the contact is intentional, accidental or the result of being caught in the scrum.
Meanwhile, footage from witnesses on the scene appears to contradict the government’s claim that members of Congress stormed the facility.
Paul Fishman, an attorney for McIver called the decision to charge the congresswoman “spectacularly inappropriate”, arguing she had the “right and responsibility to see how Ice is treating detainees”.
“Rather than facilitating that inspection, Ice agents chose to escalate what should have been a peaceful situation into chaos,” Fishman, the former US attorney for the District of New Jersey, said in a statement.
Democrats and legal advocates reacted with alarm on Monday, casting the prosecution of the congresswoman as an attempt to deter legislative oversight and stifle opposition to the Trump administration’s immigration policies, which have included raids and deportations without due process.
In a joint statement, House Democratic leaders on Monday condemned the charges as “extreme, morally bankrupt and [lacking] any basis in law or fact”.
“There is no credible evidence that Rep McIver engaged in any criminal activity,” the Democrats said, noting that after the incident, Trump administration officials led the members of Congress on a tour of the facility, which they said would not have been permitted “had she done anything wrong”.
In a statement on Monday, Bakara welcomed the dismissal of charges against him, but said 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 clear that he stood with McIver, whom he called a “daughter of Newark”.
“I fully expect her to be vindicated,” he said.
Mike Zamore, national director of policy and government affairs at the ACLU, and Amol Sinha, executive director of ACLU-NJ, warned that the charges against a sitting member of Congress were “more suited for authoritarianism than American democracy”.
“If the Trump administration can target elected officials who oppose its extreme agenda, it can happen to any one of us,” they wrote. “We demand that they drop the charges against Rep McIver, and we implore her fellow members of Congress to call for the same.”
