June 5, 2025
Newark Mayor Ras Baraka has filed a lawsuit over his arrest at a federal immigration detention heart.
Newark Mayor Ras Baraka has filed a lawsuit in opposition to Donald Trump ally, interim U.S. Lawyer Alina Habba, following his arrest at a federal immigration detention heart final month.
On June 3, the New Jersey mayor filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Courtroom in Newark, accusing Habba of defamation and violating his constitutional rights, in accordance with NBC Information. Baraka claims Habba, former private lawyer to Donald Trump, and Homeland Safety Particular Agent in Cost Ricky J. Patel infringed on his Fourth Modification protections in opposition to false arrest and malicious prosecution.
The Newark mayor, certainly one of six Democrats operating for governor of New Jersey, was arrested for trespassing on Might 9 after he and a number of other members of Congress tried to enter a Newark Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility to evaluate detainee circumstances. The costs had been later dismissed.
Attorneys for Baraka say Habba “directed and ratified the illegal arrest” of Baraka and acted as a “political operative” by defaming him in inflammatory statements on social media and in TV interviews.
“Habba was not serving in a prosecutorial operate when she acted with DHS brokers within the scheme to arrest Mayor Baraka,” the lawsuit states.
The lawsuit seeks unspecified compensatory damages for “ache, struggling, stress, and humiliation,” together with punitive damages associated to the incident. Baraka’s lawsuit attracts considerably from remarks made by U.S. Justice of the Peace Decide André Espinosa, who criticized Habba’s workplace and federal prosecutors for what he known as a “worrisome misstep” of their dealing with of Baraka’s arrest. Espinosa famous that the “obvious rush” to file costs, adopted by an “embarrassing retraction,” pointed to a failure to uphold the workplace’s historically excessive requirements.
“It’s straightforward for folks to imagine {that a} mayor being arrested, particularly a mayor that appears like me, has been arrested for one thing apart from what simply occurred,” Baraka mentioned throughout a press convention. “When folks see me in cuffs, they routinely imagine I did one thing mistaken.”
Along with Baraka’s arrest, the Justice Division later filed costs in opposition to Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-N.J.) for allegedly assaulting, resisting, and obstructing regulation enforcement in the course of the incident on the facility. The DOJ sued Newark and a number of other different New Jersey cities—Paterson, Hoboken, and Jersey Metropolis—over their sanctuary insurance policies, a lawsuit Baraka calls “absurd.”
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