Democrat New Jersey Reps. Rob Menendez Jr. and LaMonica McIver fully blamed U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents Sunday on CNN for the “chaos” that unfolded at a detention facility, claiming that law enforcement “created” the situation.
On Friday, Menendez Jr., McIver and Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman were at the Delaney Detention Hall in Newark when Democrat Newark Mayor Ras Baraka had been arrested after the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) accused them of storming the gate as a detention bus attempted to enter. While discussing their side of the story on “State of the Union,” CNN host Dana Bash asked McIver if she had body slammed an officer — citing DHS claims and bodycam footage showing the clash.
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“Absolutely no. I mean, I honestly do not know how to body slam anyone. There’s no video that supports me body slamming anyone. As Congresswoman Bonnie Watson Coleman said, we were simply there to do our job, there for an oversight visit, and what you’re watching in a video, and we don’t have all of the body cam, and we hope that all of the body cam is released,” McIver said.
“It was a very tense situation. It unfortunately did not have to be like that. They created that confrontation, they created that chaos, and then ultimately went to arrest the mayor of the largest city of New Jersey, who is my mayor and my constituent, and it was very difficult to watch that happen, but absolutely, I did not body slam anyone,” McIver added.
According to Fox News, the Democrat representatives had been held up at the first inside checkpoint while visiting the facility. As the lawmakers stood outside with a group of protesters, the chaos reportedly began once the gates opened for an ICE bus.
DHS claims the lawmakers attempted to rush the gates to get past security, releasing bodycam footage on their X page Saturday.
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CNN’s Dana Bash pressed Menendez Jr. on the incident, pointing to the level of chaos before asking how things escalated and whether he regretted how it “played out.”
“I think there’s a lot of opportunities for DHS, for ICE to de-escalate the situation,” Menendez Jr. said. “They chose not to. There’s three house members there, the mayor of the largest city. As you can see in all of the video, and this is important, they had over 20 armed ICE HSI officers. They were heavily armed, their faces were covered, and they were wearing no identification. So this is who they chose to have come engage with the mayor of Newark, and three elected members of the House of Representatives.”
“As Congressman Watson-Coleman said, the mayor had gone on to public property. He had de-escalated the situation. We were all on the other side of the fence, let’s just call it the private side of the fence,” Menendez Jr. added. “The mayor was on the public side. Someone there from HSI got a call, and what happened next was they re-engaged with the mayor. They went on to the public side, and that’s where they arrested him.”
In an interview with Fox’s Will Cain on Friday, Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin accused the Democrats of having “stormed” the gates at the facility, noting that the detention hall holds alleged MS-13 gang members and other criminals. However, McIver and Coleman’s offices pushed back on the “characterization,” claiming they were simply there to do “their jobs.”
“So there were so many instances where this could have all been de-escalated, but it was squarely in HSI, ICE’s court. They chose not to,” Menendez Jr. continued. “They made this a violent scene that we were unfortunately all a part of, and it’s something that should really shock all Americans.”
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First published by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
