Both the mayor of the city and the agency confirmed that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers detained both citizens and non-citizens during a raid on a Newark business on Thursday.
Three days after President Donald Trump reaffirmed his campaign promise to begin a mass deportation of undocumented immigrants on Inauguration Day, the event occurred.
In a statement released late Thursday afternoon, Newark Mayor Ras J. Baraka condemned the raid as a heinous act carried out without a warrant and in violation of the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which protects people’s right to be free from arbitrary searches and seizures and to be secure in their persons, homes, papers, and belongings.
Baraka, a Democrat running for his party’s candidate for governor this year, noted that one of the detainees is a veteran of the United States military who had the humiliation of having the validity of his military records questioned. Newark will not tolerate the illegal terrorization of citizens.
Later, an ICE spokeswoman acknowledged that U.S. citizens might have been detained and confirmed that the raid had taken place.
As was the case during a targeted enforcement operation at a worksite today in Newark, New Jersey, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement may come across U.S. citizens while on fieldwork and may ask for documentation to prove an individual’s identity, the statement said. Since this is an ongoing investigation, we are not permitted to discuss it in accordance with ICE rules.
The name or kind of business involved, its location, and the time of day the incident happened were not disclosed by either Baraka or ICE.
Susan Garofalo, Baraka’s press secretary, stated that the mayor would discuss the events alongside civil rights and immigration rights groups at a press conference at City Hall on Friday at 11:30 a.m.
In a statement issued Thursday evening, U.S. Representative LaMonica McIver, D-10th Dist., who represents portions of Newark, said her office had gotten in touch with the Homeland Security Department to inquire about the specifics of the incident, including how a raid could have been permitted without a warrant.
We will not back down, McIver said, adding that Trump’s attacks on immigrant communities are already having an impact. As more information becomes available, I keep in touch with Mayor Baraka and other federal and local officials. We will never give up on defending the rights and dignity of everyone in our district and the entire nation.
ICE’s plan to open an immigration detention center at Delaney Hall, a private prison facility in an industrial area of the city a few miles north of Newark Liberty International Airport, has been opposed by elected officials, including McIver, Baraka, and Cory Booker, the senior U.S. senator from New Jersey.
The director of the immigration rights organization Make the Road New Jersey, Sara Cullinane, condemned the raid as just another instance of ICE’s unlawful tactics and urged lawmakers in New Jersey to enact laws guarding against its abuses.
According to Cullinane, ICE is a rogue organization that frequently infringes on the constitutional rights of both citizens and non-citizens. And because of today’s raid, everyone is worried about Trump’s plans to increase deportation. In order to prevent residents and immigrants from having to live in dread, it is imperative that our state enact and enforce as many laws as possible.
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Steve Strunsky
This post was written by Chris Sheldon, a staff writer for NJ Advance Media.
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