Three Democratic members of Congress and a Democratic mayor nearly started a riot at an illegal-alien detention facility in New Jersey on Friday, and might well be arrested for assaulting federal agents.
Newark Mayor Ras Baraka was arrested. Far-left U.S. Representatives Bonnie Watson Coleman, Rob Menendez, and LaMonica McIver, all of New Jersey, might well find themselves facing charges. Their arrest and indictment are still “on the table,” a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spokesman said.
Video shows McIver pushing and shoving ICE agents during the Democrat-provoked pandemonium at the Delaney Hall detention center. The out-of-control Democrats, of course, claim they were wronged. They were only there to conduct “oversight,” they said. ICE, they allege, started the trouble.
The Video
Video shows McIver push and shove Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents. The congresswoman plowed into one like a NFL linebacker. Joining McIver in the fracas were, again, Watson Coleman and Menendez.
DHS spokesman Tricia McLaughlin told Fox News the day after the near-riot:
“If it was a typical U.S. citizen, and they tried to storm into a detention facility that’s housing dangerous criminals or any person at all, they would be arrested,”
Just because you are a member of Congress or just because you’re a public official, does not mean you are above the law.
McLaughlin told CNN that “we actually have body camera footage of these members of Congress assaulting these ICE enforcement officers, including body slamming a female ICE officer.” Arrests are “definitely on the table.”
Dems Blame ICE
For their part, the Democrats blame ICE … of course.
“Since DHS has been lying about this, allow me to correct the record. This scuffle, during which an ICE agent physically shoved me, occurred AFTER we had entered the Delaney Hall premises,” Watson Coleman claimed:
We entered the facility, came BACK OUT to speak to the Mayor, and then ICE agents began shoving us. This is not how we entered the facility. We were escorted in by guards, because we have lawful oversight authority to be there.
And McIver tweeted on Friday:
The way we were treated at Delaney Hall is almost unbelievable. ICE shoved me, manhandled @repbonnie, and arrested @rasjbaraka. They disrespected us and tried to stop us from conducting the oversight we’re elected to do. But we’ll never back down in our fight for what is right.
McIver continued her rant yesterday:
During our visit to Delaney Hall, ICE agents escalated tensions and showed no respect to @RepBonnie or any of us. To see a friend and mentor treated that way was upsetting. No one should face that while doing the job they were elected to do.
Menendez posted the law that gives congressmen the right to inspect such facilities.
“No matter what this Administration tells the American people, the law is very clear: Members of Congress have a legal right to enter any DHS detention facility to conduct oversight without prior notice — something I’ve done twice this year without issue,” he wrote.
If true, the near-melee on Friday raises the question of why this visit went south.
DHS Justifies Restraining Congressmen
“Members of Congress cannot break the law in the name of ‘oversight,” the DHS X feed says:
All members and staff need to comply with facility rules, procedures, and instructions from ICE personnel on site.
The rules for visitation are clear, and don’t permit on-the-spot access. Congressional visitors must provide 24 hours notice.
McLaughlin told Fox that “These members of Congress, this mayor, and these protesters are not above the law.” She noted that dangerous criminals are in the facility:
If they [want] a tour, we will easily facilitate that for them. We actually laid out the guidelines on our DHS twitter that show you need at least 24 hours of notice to these ICE detention facilities to make sure that staff, detainees, and law enforcement are safe and proper protocols and channels followed.
She said the investigation is “ongoing,” and that “everything is on the table.”
AOC Chimes In
Responding to that ominous note, far-left Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez strongly suggested that she and other congressmen would obstruct the arrest of the deranged trio.
They’re using public intimidation because they know that they cannot come for us all,” the the far-left congresswoman said:
They know that they cannot come for us all. And recently, what they said is that DHS is allegedly looking into arresting members of Congress, who were showing up for their legal and constitutional obligation to conduct oversight. If anyone’s breaking the law in this situation, it’s not members of Congress. It’s the Department of Homeland Security. It’s people like Tom Homan and Secretary Kristi Noem.
You lay a finger on … Representative Bonnie Watson Coleman … or any of the representatives that were there, you lay a finger on them, we are going to have a problem.
Plus, she explained that congressmen can conduct oversight by visiting such facilities. “It is enshrined in the law”. Again, though, that oversight is not unconditional.
Ocasio-Cortez’ has limited experience with the law, however. It is mainly confined to serving cocktails to lawyers when she was a bartender.
