As Immigration Enforcement Ramps Up, Elected Leaders Face Increased Threats

In recent weeks, there have been at least three instances of elected officials being placed in handcuffs, arrested, or charged with felonies for trying to perform oversight duties as it relates to immigration enforcement in their jurisdictions.

On May 9, the mayor of Newark, NJ, and New Jersey gubernatorial candidate Ras Baraka was arrested outside Delaney Hall, a privately owned facility that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) uses as a detention center. Baraka was accompanying three members of Congress as they attempted to tour the facility amid concerns that it had been opened without permission from the city and in violation of local ordinances.

According to witnesses, 20 to 30 armed ICE officers surrounded Baraka while he was standing outside on public property. He was charged with trespassing, had his mugshot taken, and was fingerprinted twice. Baraka’s charges were ultimately dropped, and he has since filed a lawsuit against Alina Habba, the interim US attorney for New Jersey, saying that she had pursued the case out of political spite.

Shortly after dropping charges against Baraka, Habba charged New Jersey Democratic Representative LaMonica McIver with three counts of “assaulting, resisting, impeding and interfering with a federal officer” after an altercation that ensued during Baraka’s arrest.

“You have duly elected registered officials who have registered their disagreement and were targeted. The same tools are being used on them as well.”

Last week, on June 10, a federal grand jury indicted McIver for allegedly preventing a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) agent from arresting Baraka twice. In an AP statement, McIver said, “The facts of this case will prove I was simply doing my job and will expose these proceedings for what they are: a brazen attempt at political intimidation.”

The day after McIver’s charges were announced, Senator Alex Padilla (D-CA) was forcibly removed from a news conference being held by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. Noem was speaking to the media about the federal response to ICE raids when Padilla—the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Border Security and Immigration—interrupted the press conference, identified himself, and asserted that he had questions for Noem. Almost immediately, he was forced out of the room and placed in handcuffs.

Though Noem contended that Padilla was treated in that manner because he did not identify himself, video of the incident seems to contradict that claim. Padilla asserted that he attended the press conference because DHS had not been answering his questions about the Trump administration’s deportations and immigration policies. Noem said that she does not expect Padilla to be charged. But placing Padilla in handcuffs in this context is on its own an unprecedented action to take against a high-ranking political official.

An Effort to Quell Dissent

These incidents, among others—such as the charges filed against a Wisconsin judge accused of helping an undocumented man avoid ICE custody by escorting him out of her courtroom—reflect a widening campaign to suppress oversight and dissent around the immigration system. The stakes are high—in fact, Seattle Police Chief Shon Barnes recently acknowledged that he will likely go to jail for his decision to protect residents rather than cooperate with ICE.

“We have an administration that has threatened to jail politicians,” he said.

“Trump has shown disdain for Democratic-controlled cities, especially those that happen to be majority Black and brown.”

Covering the case against McIver, who faces 17 years in prison if convicted, reporter Mariel Padilla pointed out for The 19th News, “It is rare for a sitting member of Congress to face federal charges other than fraud or corruption….Two of the counts carry a maximum sentence of eight years in prison. It also underscores the Trump administration’s aggressive stance against dissent.”

In an interview with NPQ, Amara Enyia, the interim co-executive of the Movement for Black Lives, cited recent protests against ICE arrests nationwide, including in California, Nebraska, and Illinois as physical expressions of dissent. She characterized Trump’s response to the protests—federalizing the National Guard in California and threatening to do so in other areas, deploying the Marines, and issuing executive orders against opponents—as “attempts to quell and stifle dissent.”

“You have duly elected registered officials who have registered their disagreement and were targeted. The same tools are being used on them as well,” Enyia said.

The Continued Fight Against Injustice

It is worth noting that most of the elected officials who have been targeted in recent weeks are people of color operating in their official capacity as elected leaders. Ed Pilkington pointed out in The Guardian that “Trump has long shown disdain for Democratic-controlled cities, especially those that happen to be majority Black and brown.”

Pilkington notes that Newark, New Jersey’s largest city, is 47 percent Black and 37 percent Hispanic. The city is also one of the few in the country that is a “sanctuary city,” offering protections to undocumented immigrants and limited cooperation with ICE unless a crime is involved.

“When we were fighting to dismantle Jim Crow in America, people were afraid….When the women’s suffrage movement was going, in the fight for labor rights, there was fear, but people still did what they thought was right.”

Trump recently announced that he plans on ramping up deportations in cities run by Democrats, and sanctuary cities in particular. Elie Mystal, wrote for The Nation that this will likely lead to increased targeting of Black elected officials as well.

“There are a few reasons for this, foremost among them that Trump’s attacks are always directly most forcefully and brutally against communities of color, which Black Democrats are more likely to represent,” Mystal wrote.

For Baraka, whose father was a prominent activist and poet during the Black freedom movement of the 1960s, now is the time to lean into history and remember those who did not cave to fear but continued to fight against injustices.

“When we were fighting to dismantle Jim Crow in America, people were afraid,” Baraka said. “When the women’s suffrage movement was going, in the fight for labor rights, there was fear, but people still did what they thought was right.”