McIver is still in the crosshairs of the DOJ
Bonnie Watson-Coleman, LaMonica McIver and Rob Menendez Jr. speaking to a reporter outside of the Homeland Security Investigations building in Newark, NJ on May 9th, 2025. Photo credit: Hali Cooper.
Newark, NJ - The U.S. Department of Justice still has its sights set on U.S. Representative LaMonica McIver. Over a week after Newark Mayor Ras J. Baraka was arrested for allegedly trespassing at Delaney Hall, the DOJ dropped their charges against Baraka, only to charge McIver for reportedly assaulting two federal agents as the Newark Mayor was arrested on May 9th.
Delaney Hall was reopened as an immigrant detention center on May 1st. However, on March 31st, the City of Newark filed a complaint against ICE with Essex County Superior Court, claiming ICE had illegally opened the facility "without following proper building safety protocols" and failed to provide city officials access to conduct mandatory inspections. McIver accompanied Mayor Baraka during his oversight visit to Delaney.
The DOJ initially charged McIver with two counts of "Assaulting, Resisting, and Impeding Certain Officers or Employees" as federal agents were trying to arrest Baraka outside Delaney Hall. These charges were served by Alina Habba, the Trump-appointed interim U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey, who denounced Baraka's "trespass" at Delaney following his arrest, tweeting, "NO ONE IS ABOVE THE LAW."
The DOJ filed a criminal complaint against McIver on May 19th in the U.S. District Court in Newark, presenting it to U.S. Magistrate, Judge Stacey Adams.
In the criminal complaint, Robert Tansey, a Special Agent with the Newark Division of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) at the Department of Homeland Security, stated that McIver attempted multiple times to "forcibly assault, resist, oppose, impede, intimidate, and interfere with the agents attempting to take the Mayor into custody."
Tansey claimed that McIver and the other members of Congress who were with Baraka surrounded the Mayor to try to prevent HSI agents from arresting him. Citing still frames of body camera footage taken by federal agents during Baraka’s arrest, Tansey alleged that McIver slammed her forearm into one HSI agent, tried to grab and restrain them, and pushed and struck an ICE officer with her forearms.
McIver has since been indicted on her federal charges, which were brought up to three counts of “assaulting, resisting, and interfering with federal officials” on June 10th. McIver’s court appearance for her charges, which was scheduled for the following day, was also canceled. A new arraignment will take place on an unspecified date.
In response to her indictment, McIver released the following statement the same day:
“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. This indictment is no more justified than the original charges and is an effort by Trump’s administration to dodge accountability for the chaos ICE caused and scare me out of doing the work I was elected to do. But it won’t work – I will not be intimidated. The facts are on our side; I will be entering a plea of not guilty. I’m grateful for the support of my community, and I look forward to my day in court.”
Mayor Baraka previously released a statement voicing his support for McIver in the wake of her federal charges:
"I understand that the U.S. Attorney has chosen to charge Congresswoman LaMonica McIver with assaulting law enforcement. Congresswoman McIver is a daughter of Newark, past Newark Council President, a former student of mine, and a dear friend. I want to be clear: I stand with LaMonica, and I fully expect her to be vindicated."
U.S. Representative LaMonica communicating with two people outside the Homeland Security Investigations building in Newark, NJ, on May 9th, 2025. Photo credit: Hali Cooper.
How will this affect McIver and Newark?
Currently, McIver's future as a member of Congress is unclear. McIver was only recently appointed a U.S. Representative of New Jersey's 10th district on September 27th, 2024. With her three-count indictment, McIver faces a maximum sentence of 17 years in prison.
Though McIver faces federal charges, Article I, section 5 of the U.S. Constitution allows each House of Congress to "determine the Rules of its proceedings, punish its members for disorderly behavior, and, with the concurrence of two-thirds, expel a member." Since 1789, the House of Representatives has expelled only six of its members, and three of these expulsions were during the Civil War for individuals who fought for the Confederacy.
McIver is a member of the Democratic Party, and while Republicans hold the House majority with 220 seats, Democrats hold 212 seats. There has to be a two-thirds vote to expel McIver, and the Democrats likely won't abandon her so quickly for supposedly trying to protect a city mayor, who's also a Democrat, during a seemingly unjust arrest.
House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries released a statement supporting McIver and denouncing the charges against her, calling them "extreme, morally bankrupt, and [lacking] any basis in law or fact." Meanwhile, Republican Congressperson Nancy Mace filed a resolution to expel McIver after being charged by the DOJ.
Should the House expel McIver, due to federal requirements, her vacancy would have to be filled by an elected replacement. How and when this election occurs is determined by the state. New Jersey law states that the Governor may issue a writ scheduling a special primary election in 70 to 76 days, with a special election occurring 64 to 70 days afterwards.
It could take several months for New Jersey’s 10th Congressional District to get a replacement for McIver if she is expelled. In the meantime, her staff would be supervised by the Clerk of the House, Kevin McCumber.
Even if McIver isn't expelled, she can still be censured or reprimanded by the House of Representatives for her actions. A censure is meant to formally and publicly show the House's disapproval of a member's actions without punishing them with expulsion. A reprimand accomplishes the same thing but less severely.
However, Prof. Frank Edwards of the Rutgers School of Criminal Justice in Newark, who has spoken out against the “illegal” reopening of Delaney Hall as a member of the Rutgers Faculty Union, also criticized the charges against McIver, arguing that they won’t hold up in court.
“I think the chances of her being convicted are about one in a million,” said Prof. Edwards. “The charges are trumped up…They’re not going to stick in any court that follows the law because she hasn’t broken any law.”
What could McIver's charges really mean for Newark[ers]?
Whether or not the House of Representatives will expel, censure, or reprimand McIver, the charges against her have been perceived as another attempt to intimidate and discourage Baraka and his allies from combating the Trump Administration's plan to carry out mass deportations of immigrants with Delaney Hall.
Stanley N. Katz, a Lecturer with the rank of Professor at the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs, described the charges against McIver as a “terrible politicization of the criminal justice system.” He argued that they were “politically motivated,” “not very well thought through,” and meant to defend an “indefensible policy” by intimidating the opposition.
Prof. Edwards also claimed the charges against McIver are a clear case of the Trump Administration trying to harass, intimidate, and silence political opponents using federal law enforcement.
“This is the kind of thing we see under fascist and authoritarian governments: the weaponization of law enforcement for political ends,” Prof. Edwards added. “It’s meant to be chilling. It’s meant to be terrifying. And a lot of folks in the labor movement are not going to be intimidated by that.”
Baraka himself insisted that, after his court hearing on May 15th, the federal prosecutors took his fingerprints and mugshot a second time to humiliate, demean, and degrade him. But he claims this did not deter him.
"I still feel like what we did was completely correct," Baraka said outside the courthouse. "We did not violate any laws. We stood up for the Constitution of this country, the Constitution for the State of New Jersey, and we stood up for the local laws that were put together by the people of this city and by the people of this state."
The timing of McIver's charges is suspicious, as they only came just as Alina Habba dropped the trespassing charge against Baraka. On May 15th, after leaving the Newark courthouse, Mayor Baraka pointed out that he was the only person charged and arrested by ICE at Delaney Hall.
Even after the DOJ charged the Mayor, McIver proved she was not deterred and continued to prioritize investigating Delaney Hall. In an interview with MSNBC, she claimed to have made a "full tour" of the facility since the "scrum" resulting in Baraka's arrest, meeting with detainees said to have gone days without making any phone calls or talking to their families or legal representation.
Overall, Baraka's arrest and the charges against him and McIver seem to have made Newark a major political battleground for immigrants' rights. The Mayor himself acknowledged that, at the time of his court hearing, the Trump Administration was working to undermine the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. This referenced the three legal cases challenging Trump for signing an executive order to abolish birthright citizenship, which the Supreme Court heard on May 15th.
"You cannot just subvert [due process], undermine that, disregard that, simply because you want to,” said Baraka. "I don't care who you are. You don't have the right to do that. You don't have the right to identify people on their nationality or their race or their language and say some people should be treated by the laws of this land and other people should not. This is wrong. It is unjust. It is undemocratic. It is unpatriotic. It is un-American."
Public Square Amplified will continue to follow this story as the legal case progresses.
