…reached out and grabbed the Mayor of Newark, NJ, Ras Baraka. Hizzoner, of course, is running for Governor of New Jersey this year. Mayor Baraka was arrested at an ICE facility in his city, today, apparently engaged in some sort of campaign publicity stunt.
It seems he was tagging along with three local congresspeople who were there to tour the facility. They, of course, are federal officials and they were authorized visitors at a federal facility.
The mayor is a local official, and had entered a secure area of the facility, without authorization, and would not leave, despite repeated requests. Hence his arrest for trespass. He was later released. From the Philadelphia Inquirer,
Baraka has been protesting the 1,000-bed detention center’s opening with advocates this week. Witnesses said he was arrested after trying to join three members of New Jersey’s congressional delegation who attempted to enter the facility, and a heated argument broke out when federal officials denied his entry, according to the Associated Press. The argument continued after he exited to the public side of the facility’s gates.
It’s a rare example of a law being applied to a Democrat, so naturally, everyone involved is completely incredulous. The local U.S. Attorney wrote on Twitter (X) to remind everyone,
The Mayor of Newark, Ras Baraka, committed trespass and ignored multiple warnings from Homeland Security Investigations to remove himself from the ICE detention center in Newark, New Jersey this afternoon. He has willingly chosen to disregard the law. That will not stand in this state. He has been taken into custody. NO ONE IS ABOVE THE LAW.
No one is above the law, but in recent decades, many of the right side of the political spectrum have found themselves beneath it.
Baraka, age 55, has been Mayor of Newark for over a decade. He is the son of Amiri Baraka (formerly LeRoi Jones), a noted poet. As LeRoi Jones, the elder Baraka’s first published book of poems was titled Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note (1961). In my misspent youth studying 20th-century English literature, I came across the poem by Baraka/Jones, “In Memory of Radio.” These are three lines I have been unable to forget, all these decades later, paraphrasing Tennyson,
What can I say? It is better to have loved and lost Than to put linoleum in your living rooms?
Perhaps, we’ll never know.
