Mayor Ras Baraka Talks to “The Nation”

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May 13, 2025

On his arrest, the private prison company GEO, and why he believes we’re heading into authoritarianism—but democracy will prevail.

Protesters, activists, and local politicians gather in Lower Manhattan to denounce the arrest yesterday of Newark Mayor Ras Baraka for allegedly trespassing at an ICE facility in New Jersey.(Spencer Platt / Getty Images)

Ras Baraka, the democratic mayor of Newark, New Jersey, who was arrested by federal agents last Friday, is the latest example of the Trump administration’s metastasizing authoritarianism.

Baraka was arrested outside Delany Hall, an immigration detention center in Newark, and charged with a Class C misdemeanor for federal trespass. Alina Habba, counselor to President Trump and interim US Attorney for New Jersey, said that Baraka had “willingly chosen to disregard the law” and had “ignored multiple warnings from Homeland Security Investigations to remove himself from the ICE detention center.”

Baraka spoke to The Nation on Sunday, two days after his release, and repudiated Habba’s characterization of the events and clarified that he was not at the facility to protest. “We were not protesting,” Baraka said. “I came down there to attend a press conference. The dispute is with GEO. It always has been with GEO.”

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GEO Group is a private prison company that owns Delany Hall. In February, GEO Group signed a 15-year, fixed-priced contract, estimated to be worth $60 million a year, with the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The contract followed a federal judge’s 2023 ruling that New Jersey’s 2021 law, AB 5207, is unconstitutional. The law prohibits state and local entities and private correctional facilities from entering into agreements with federal immigration authorities to detain noncitizens. The case is ongoing. Governor Phil Murphy and New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin appealed the federal court’s decision, and a federal appeals court will hold a hearing this month to determine if the ruling stands.

Shortly after GEO Group announced its contract with ICE, Caleb Vitello, acting ICE director, made the intent of the deal plain. “The location near an international airport streamlines logistics, and helps facilitate the timely processing of individuals in our custody as we pursue President Trump’s mandate to arrest, detain, and remove illegal aliens from our communities.”

If the ruling is not overturned, it will set the stage for the federal government to partner with corporate entities to infringe on state sovereignty, defy local ordinances, and indiscriminately detain people in private barracks without due process, and traffic them to foreign territory.

“I do not think people are seeing what’s happening here clearly enough,” Baraka told The Nation. “We are moving fast into authoritarianism.” Baraka’s warnings are not hyperbolic when one considers the nature of the federal government charging a sitting mayor with “federal trespass.”

Despite Habba’s allegations, video footage shows that Baraka did leave Delany Hall and was arrested after he walked out of the facility’s grounds and stood on public property. Still, Delany Hall is not federal land. Delany Hall is owned by GEO Group, which has allowed ICE to repurpose the former halfway house into a shadow prison. Yet that is precisely the point. Under Trump’s regime, there is no land Trump cannot claim under his dominion, which renders every American his subject. If Trump can plunder land in Newark, New Jersey, and arrest a publicly elected official on public property in broad daylight, in front of witnesses, in front of cameras, is there safety for anyone anywhere at any time?

“We can’t acquiesce to that,” Baraka told The Nation. “I think this is an opportunity for states to become labs of democracy to try everything that we have not tried before. We need to figure out a way to build a democracy outside these folks and their push to dismember democracy in this country.”

Indeed, the Trump administration’s full-scale desecration of due process and evisceration of the separation of powers between the American government’s federal, executive, and judicial branches will require nationwide collaboration among state legislatures. Governors, mayors, and members of Congress need to harness financial and legal resources to resurrect and repurpose “states’ rights” tactics to defeat our tyrannical federal government.

Despite his arrest, Baraka is steadfast in his belief that American democracy still exists and can prevail. “The reality is we’ve been fighting for a long time to, as Dr. King said, to make America live up to what is written on paper. That’s really what this is about. And there are people who want to renege on that promise because it doesn’t benefit them individually,” Baraka said to The Nation. “There are many of us in this country who disagree with that, who believe that everybody who resides here, who comes here, should have an opportunity to participate in the greatest idea in the history of the world.”

Baraka has a preliminary hearing scheduled for Thursday, May 15.