OPINION:
Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, a front-runner for New Jersey’s Democratic gubernatorial contest, showed up with a bulldozer last week at Delaney Hall Detention Center, which houses violent criminal illegal immigrants, and demanded that the facility close its doors.
Mr. Baraka claimed the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility didn’t have the required permits to operate and vowed to return every day until it was shut down.
Since President Trump announced a $1 billion deal with a private prison company in February to reopen Delaney Hall as a federal immigration processing center, Mr. Baraka has worked hard to prevent this from happening.
At a rally in March, Mr. Baraka told protesters he would padlock the building if necessary to prevent it from opening, according to local reports.
He was arrested Friday after storming the center with three Democratic members of New Jersey’s congressional delegation. In an unannounced visit, they demanded to inspect the facility.
“In a bizarre political stunt, as a bus of detainees entered the security gate of Delaney Hall Detention Center, a group of protesters, including two members of U.S. Congress, stormed the gate and broke into the detention facility,” Assistant Homeland Security Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement shortly after the incident. “This illegal breaking and entering of a detention facility puts the safety of our law enforcement agents and the detainees at risk.”
Mr. Baraka “committed trespass and ignored multiple warnings from Homeland Security Investigations to remove himself,” Alina Habba, interim U.S. attorney for the District of New Jersey, wrote Friday on X.
“He has willingly chosen to disregard the law. That will not stand in this state. He has been taken into custody,” Ms. Habba posted. “NO ONE IS ABOVE THE LAW.”
Bodycam video released by the Department of Homeland Security shows the Democratic delegation pushing and shoving ICE officers in an attempt to break into the facility. Since Mr. Trump’s mass deportation efforts have gone into effect, assaults on ICE officers have increased by 413%.
The New York Post reported that detainees at the Delaney Detention Hall include Chinchilla Caballero and Saravia Santamaria. Homeland Security said these illegal immigrants with lengthy rap sheets are active members of the MS-13 street gang.
Also among those locked up at the facility is Adonis Estevez Bello, 23, a multiple felon and member of the Dominican Republic street gang Dominicans Don’t Play, the agency says.
Democrats are rallying around murderers, rapists, domestic abusers and thieves at the expense of their U.S. constituents’ safety and the rule of law.
Earlier this month, Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan was arrested on obstruction charges in the ICE detention of Eduardo Flores-Ruiz. Mr. Flores-Ruiz, who was born in Mexico and is a Mexican citizen, was accused of punching a roommate 30 times and hitting a woman who tried to end the fight.
He was deported to Mexico in 2013, but he illegally crossed back into the U.S.
Judge Duggan is accused of sneaking Mr. Flores-Ruiz out a back door of her courtroom to evade his ICE arrest and eventual deportation before a pretrial hearing where the victims were present.
Then there’s the case of “Maryland man” Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran citizen who Democrats claim was mistakenly deported to a prison in El Salvador courtesy of Homeland Security.
In 2019, Mr. Abrego Garcia caught law enforcement’s attention while hanging out with known MS-13 gang members outside a Home Depot. He had more than $1,700 in cash on him.
His wife also suspected he was a gang member and was issued a protective order against him.
“I have multiple photos/videos of how violate he can be, and all the bruises he has left me,” she wrote in a handwritten plea for the court’s help. In a second declaration, she said: “I also have a recorded that told my ex-mother-in-law that even if he kills me, no one can do anything to him.”
In 2022, Mr. Abrego Garcia was caught in Tennessee with eight people in his car, all without luggage, and with $1,400 in cash. Nobody in the car had a valid driver’s license, and the officers who pulled him over suspected him of human trafficking but were instructed by the FBI to let him go.
Ninety-seven percent of Americans believe illegal immigrants who have committed violent crimes should be deported, according to a March poll conducted by the Pew Research Center. Mr. Trump’s nationwide crackdown on illegal immigration, cartels and transnational gangs isn’t even an 80-20 issue. It’s 97-3.
As for Delaney Hall, Homeland Security categorically denies that the facility lacks the proper permits to operate and has openly invited lawmakers to comply with ICE facility visitation guidelines for congressional members and staff to tour the facility.
Democrats can continue to stand with illegal rapists, murderers and child traffickers. They just can’t break the law in doing so. Their actions also serve as a stark reminder as to whom they most passionately represent: illegal criminals, not U.S. citizen victims.
• Kelly Sadler is the commentary editor at The Washington Times.
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