Three Democratic lawmakers who were involved in a tense encounter outside an Immigrations and Customs Enforcement facility in Newark, New Jersey, are accusing the administration of “intimidation” after a Department of Homeland Security official suggested they could be arrested.
Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman, who joined CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday alongside fellow New Jersey Democrats, Reps. LaMonica McIver and Robert Menendez Jr., said the lawmakers haven’t heard from DHS after the tense encounter on Friday that culminated in the detention of Newark Mayor Ras Baraka.
“We have no idea what they have in mind, other than to create an environment of intimidation just by claiming that perhaps we might be subject to arrest,” Watson Coleman said. “Nothing happened other than the chaos that they created themselves.”
The lawmakers traveled for a tour of the facility as part of their Congressional oversight duties and had been there for nearly two hours before the confrontation as ICE officials gave them “the run around,” Watson Coleman said. But the situation escalated when Baraka was asked to leave the premises and was detained. He was released after several hours.
The immigration officials eventually took the lawmakers on the tour after the confrontation, McIver said.
“They took us on a tour, offered us a soda in the midst of doing this, never apologized or said anything about the confrontation and the chaos that they caused outside,” McIver said, adding that the lawmakers were able to speak to detainees while inside.
Lawmakers are allowed to enter “any facility operated by or for the Department of Homeland Security used to detain or otherwise house aliens” to conduct oversight under the annual appropriations act, which allocates funds for federal agencies.
But DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin told CNN on Saturday the lawmakers could be arrested, saying the department has “body camera footage of some of these members of Congress assaulting our ICE enforcement officers, including body slamming a female ICE officer.”
The videos released by the department show the arrest of Baraka, along with more angles of the physical altercations between federal agents, protesters and the members of Congress. One video appears to show McIver using her body to push past federal agents to follow Baraka after he was placed in handcuffs and moved behind the chain-linked fence. McIver on Sunday denied that she body slammed the agents.
“There’s no video that supports me body slamming anyone,” she said, later adding that she hopes all the body camera video from the incident is released because it was a “very tense situation.”
Watson Coleman on Sunday said the incident is an example of the Trump administration weaponizing law enforcement.
“If they can do this to three federally elected officials with the authority to come and do their job, and they can then also lock up the mayor of the largest city in the state of New Jersey, who is on public property, I understand the fear that I keep getting information on,” Watson Coleman said. “People just are afraid of this un-American hyperactivity, this weaponization of law enforcement and the consistent lying at all levels to try to cover up for the wrong and the unlawful activities that ICE did on that day.”
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