Five days after an oversight visit at a Newark immigrant detention center turned into a nationally watched incident, the specter of Delaney Hall continues to loom over Congress.
The Friday afternoon scuffle initially only led to direct consequences for one person: Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, who was arrested at the scene – instantly making him into a liberal hero and conservative scapegoat – and now faces trespassing charges. But Reps. LaMonica McIver (D-Newark), Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-Ewing), and Rob Menendez (D-Jersey City), who were there to conduct an oversight visit, got involved in an altercation with the agents who were handcuffing Baraka, prompting the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to issue a (so far unrealized) threat to arrest them, too.
At a House Homeland Security Committee hearing today, Chairman Mark Green (R-Tennessee) showed footage of the Delaney Hall dustup with a focus on McIver, a member of the committee who was present for the hearing. The conduct by McIver and her colleagues, Green said, was “unconscionable” and should be subject to consequences.
“This behavior demands a swift and firm response, and I assure you, action will be taken,” Green said.
Yesterday, Rep. Buddy Carter (R-Georgia) introduced a resolution that would strip McIver, Menendez, and Watson Coleman of their committee assignments. Provocateur Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia), who was stripped of her own committee assignments when Democrats controlled the House, has gone so far as to say that McIver should be expelled from Congress entirely.
The three Democratic representatives, all of whom represent deep-blue districts, have responded to the broadsides against them by saying that Republicans are simply trying to distract voters from their legislative agenda under consideration this week.
“This is just another attempt to distract from the reality of what Republicans are seeking to do: strip healthcare away from 13.7 million Americans and slash programs that strengthen our communities and make them healthier,” they said in a joint statement yesterday. “As we all know, Members of Congress have a legal right to conduct oversight at any DHS detention facility without prior notice, and that’s exactly what we were doing last week.”
While members of Congress do in fact have official oversight powers over facilities like Delaney Hall, local officials like Baraka do not, hence why he was treated differently than the three representatives who accompanied him last week. But Baraka says that he had been complying with officials’ directives when he was arrested; indeed, video footage shows Baraka and the representatives being allowed into the facility peacefully (and not “storming” it, as the DHS has claimed), and the mayor was ultimately arrested back at the facility’s gate where officials had directed him to return, not within the facility itself.
Baraka’s arrest then prompted the tussle that has become the subject of Republicans’ ire. The three representatives and the DHS have each claimed that the other “assaulted” them, and footage shows a general melee, with McIver in particular forcefully trying to protect Baraka. (Neither side has publicized any injuries.) Afterwards, the members were able to tour the facility, which they said appeared to generally be clean and safe, though by then the focus of the visit had shifted almost entirely to Baraka.
The fight over Delaney Hall has its roots in local, somewhat arcane issues. Baraka and his administration in Newark have said that the 1,000-bed facility, which is privately owned and under contract with the government to house immigrant detainees, doesn’t have the proper permits to be operating and has filed a state lawsuit to shut it down; the DHS and GEO Group, the company that owns the facility, denies the city’s accusations.
But as the country reckons with President Donald Trump’s aggressive deportation policies, Delaney Hall has inevitably become a symbol of much larger fights, with leaders of both parties weighing in on what should be done to McIver, Menendez, and Watson Coleman and using the incident to further their own arguments on immigration.
This morning, House Speaker Mike Johnson said at a press conference that he’s “looking at what is appropriate” and raised the possibility of censuring the three representatives, removing them from committees, or even expelling them, though he acknowledged that the latter would require a two-thirds majority and thus would be functionally impossible. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, meanwhile, has said that arresting or sanctioning any of the three representatives would be a “red line” for him.
Today’s Homeland Security hearing, which was focused on testimony from Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, similarly featured plenty of back-and-forth on the issue, with members from both parties as well as Noem herself opining on McIver’s actions. One of McIver’s defenders on the committee was Rep. Nellie Pou (D-North Haledon), who was also present at a protest on Friday to demand Baraka’s release from detainment.
“The fact that your spokesperson suggested arresting members of Congress who were given a tour of the facility is disturbing and certainly dangerous,” Pou told Noem during her five minutes of questioning. “We will not accept threats or intimidation by anyone at your department, or across the administration, for exercising our constitutional oversight authority.”
When it came time for McIver to question Noem, however, she steered well clear of the topic; instead, she pressed Noem on revocations of student visas and union-busting at the TSA.
“This isn’t about me,” she said later on social media. “It never has been. It’s about doing the job.”