Newark Mayor and Democrat gubernatorial hopeful Ras Baraka filed a lawsuit against interim U.S. Attorney for New Jersey, Alina Habba on Tuesday.
The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court in New Jersey, accuses Habba of acting politically in Baraka’s arrest outside the Delaney Hall detention center, near Newark Liberty International Airport. Baraka was arrested during a protest outside the facility, after being accused of trespassing and ignoring warnings from law enforcement officials to leave. He was held in custody for several hours before being released.
The U.S. attorney’s office said last month it would drop the charges against Baraka “for the sake of moving forward.” (RELATED: Mayor Arrested During Attempted ICE Facility Raid Claims He’s Victim Of ‘Targeting’)
The civil lawsuit filed by Baraka seeks damages for what his lawyers described as his “false arrest and malicious prosecution,” as well as the allegedly defamatory remarks Habba made about his case, including on social media. The lawsuit includes screenshots of Habba’s social media posts in question.
Baraka was briefly charged with criminal trespassing last month outside the Delaney Hall federal immigration detention center, a 1,000-bed facility near Newark, New Jersey.
Habba claimed he “ignored multiple warnings” from her ICE detention center— a contention he disputed.
In the lawsuit, Baraka’s lawyers accused Habba of acting as “a political operative, outside of any function intimately related to the judicial process, and in her individual personal capacity.”
It also accuses her of green-lighting the arrest despite “clear evidence that Mayor Baraka had not committed the petty offense of ‘defiant trespass.’” Also named as a defendant in the case is Ricky Patel, a DHS Investigations agent in charge in Newark.
Representatives LaMonica McIver, Bonnie Watson Coleman, and Rob Menendez Jr. who also participated in the ICE facility raid were also under the threat of legal consequences after allegedly storming the Delaney Hall Detention Center in Newark. (RELATED: House Democrats May Face Charges After Clashing With ICE At New Jersey Detention Center)
Footage released by DHS appears to show McIver, clad in a red blazer, forcefully pushing through law enforcement officers near the facility’s gate. McIver and Watson Coleman, however, insist they were the ones assaulted. McIver wrote on X (formerly known as Twitter) that she was shoved and that Watson Coleman was “manhandled,” pushing back against DHS’s assertion that the lawmakers initiated the chaos.
At one point in the footage that has been made public, McIver is seen, shouting, “I touch whoever I want, motherf*****!”
Arrest him for REAL, this time!
Baraka was the one acting politically. But he’s a Democrat and you must always accuse your opponent of what you’re already doing.