Photo Credit: Associated Press
Democratic Rep. LaMonica McIver is being charged with assault after a skirmish with federal officers outside an immigration detention center, said New Jersey’s top federal prosecutor, who also announced Monday that she was dropping a trespassing case against the Newark mayor whose arrest led to the disturbance.
Interim U.S. Attorney Alina Habba wrote on social media that McIver is facing a charge of assaulting, impeding or interfering with law enforcement, but court papers providing details were not immediately released or publicly available online.
The prosecution of McIver is a rare federal criminal case against a sitting member of Congress for allegations other than fraud or corruption. The case instantly taps into a much broader and more consequential power struggle between a Trump administration engaged in a sweeping overhaul of immigration policy and a Democratic party scrambling for ways to respond.
Within minutes of Habba’s announcement, McIver’s Democratic colleagues cast the prosecution as an infringement on lawmakers’ official duties to serve their constituents and an effort to silence their opposition to an immigration policy that helped propel the president back into power but now has emerged as divisive fault line in American political discourse.
At the same time, Habba announced that her office agreed to dismiss a misdemeanor charge against Democratic Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, who was arrested after he attempted to join McIver and two other members of New Jersey’s congressional delegation inspecting the facility in their oversight capacity. Habba said the decision was reached “for the sake of moving forward” and said she has invited the mayor to tour the Delaney Hall detention center and will join him herself.
“The citizens of New Jersey deserve unified leadership so we can get to work to keep our state safe,” Habba said in a statement.
