US Rep. LaMonica McIver to be arraigned on assault charges
On Wednesday, the American representative Lamonica McIiver is expected to be arrested for federal accusations, accused of having attacked and interfered with immigration agents outside a detention center in New Jersey during a conference surveillance visit to the establishment. She said she was planning to fight the accusations.
McIiver, a democrat, was charged in a complaint by American acting lawyer Alina Habba, a Republican appointed by President Donald Trump, after the May 9 visit to the Delaney Hall in Newark, a private installation of 1000 beds that immigration and customs application use as a detention center.
This month, she was charged with three chiefs of aggression, resistance, embarrassment and interfere with federal officials. Habba said two charges include a maximum sentence of eight years in prison. The third has a maximum of one year.
Mciver’s lawyer, a former American lawyer for New Jersey Paul Fishman, said in a statement that she would dispute the “frontal” allegations in court.
The accusation act is the last development of a political drama that saw the Trump administration take democratic officials from the largest city in New Jersey to the midst of the repression of ongoing immigration and the efforts of the Democrats to respond. The accusation is a rare federal criminal affair against a member of the congress for allegations other than fraud or corruption.
During the same visit to the detention center, the mayor of Newark, Ras Baraka, was arrested for an accusation of intrusion which was then abandoned. Baraka continues Habba on what he called a malicious prosecution.
A video clip of almost two minutes published by the Department of Internal Security shows McIiver in the installation inside a chain connection fence just before the arrest of Baraka on the other side of the barrier, where other people protested. Mciver and uniform officials go through the door, and she joins others, shouting that they should surround the mayor.
The video shows McIiver in a group of closely packaged people and officers. At one point, his left elbow, then his right elbow grows in an officer carrying a dark face cover and an olive green uniform sporting the word “police”.
It is not clear from the video of the police of the police if the contact was intentional, accessory or the result of the jostling on the chaotic scene.
The complaint alleys that she “slammed” her forearm in an agent and then tried to hold the agent by grabbing him.
The indictment also says that she placed her arms around the mayor to try to stop her arrest and again said that she slammed the forearm and caught an agent.
The Democrats, including the representatives of New Jersey, Bonnie Watson Coleman and Rob Menendez, who were with McIver at the detention center that day, criticized the arrest and disputed the accusations.
Congress members are legally authorized to go to federal immigration facilities as part of their supervisory powers, even without notice. The congress adopted a 2019 credit bill spending this authority.
McIiver, 39, came for the first time at Congress in September during a special election after the death of representative Donald Payne Jr. left a position in the 10th district. She was then elected to a full mandate in November.
Native of Newark, she was president of the Newark Municipal Council from 2022 to 2024 and worked in public schools in the city before that.
