(Reuters) -The Democratic mayor of Newark, New Jersey, who is running to be the state’s governor, was arrested on Friday after refusing to leave a federal immigration detention center, the top federal prosecutor in New Jersey said in a statement posted on X.
Alina Habba, a former lawyer to President Donald Trump serving as acting U.S. attorney, said Mayor Ras Baraka “committed trespass and ignored multiple warnings” to leave a detention facility run by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Newark.
A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security said two Democratic members of Congress were also at the facility. The spokesperson accused them of breaking into the facility when a bus of detainees arrived.
A spokesperson for Baraka did not immediately respond to a request for comment. It was not immediately clear if he was facing charges over the incident.
(Reporting by Andrew Goudsward; Editing by Leslie Adler and Chizu Nomiyama)