Newark, NJ Mayor Ras Baraka, son of poet and activist Amiri Baraka, was arrested last week outside of Delaney Hall, an ICE prison operated by GEO Group under a 15-year, $1 billion dollar contract which recently reopened without permission from the city and in violation of local ordinances. (GEO Group is the same company that runs Texas’s Broward Transitional Facility, where Marie Ange Blaise was pronounced dead after allegedly being denied adequate medical care.)

Mayor Baraka had attempted to join a scheduled congressional oversight visit with NJ Reps Robert Menendez, LaMonica McIver, and Bonnie Watson Coleman. Federal officials blocked their entry and physically confronted both Mayor Baraka and the congresswomen, arresting Baraka after he had left the premises and returned to the public side of the gate.

A DHS statement inaccurately characterized the visitors as protestors who “stormed the gate and broke into the detention facility.” Mayor Baraka sued GEO Group as soon as plans to open Delaney Hall were announced and has been vocal in his opposition to the administration’s targeting of immigrant communities. Call your mayor and ask them to be more like Mayor Baraka.

(Taken from an email sent to me by Never Again Action. Emphasis original.)