Newark mayor takes fight to the gates of ICE detention center amid legal battle over alleged safety violations
The Democrat mayor of Newark, New Jersey, on Tuesday continued his crusade to stop Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) activities inside a previously vacant prison that is being converted into an immigrant detention center.
Mayor Ras Baraka arrived at the gates of Delaney Hall this morning alongside activists to demand entry into the facility that he claims GEO Group, the building’s new owner, is unlawfully preventing from being inspected.
A lawsuit filed on behalf of the City of Newark on April 1 alleges that GEO Group failed to permit entry to safety inspectors and violated city construction code, including by conducting electrical and plumbing renovations without proper oversight.
Fox News Digital reached out to the mayor's office for comment on the ongoing litigation and Baraka's visit to the facility.
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In a press conference on Monday, Baraka said GEO Group is "following the pattern of the president of the United States who believes that he can just do what he wants to do and obscure the laws, national and constitutional laws, and they think they can do the same thing in the state of New Jersey and in Newark."
Baraka said fire department officials were trying to verify whether people were being detained in Delaney Hall after hearing "from word of mouth that they said they've been putting people in the building, from an employee there who told us that detainees were in fact being allowed in the building."
"In the initial inspection, we found some violations. Some of them weren't grave violations, but they were, in fact, violations. Violations that put first responders at risk, violations that put detainees or workers that are there at risk," the mayor continued.
Possible violations listed later in the press conference by lawyer Kenyatta K. Stewart included unsanitary kitchens, lack of emergency exits and lack of proper ventilation.
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Stewart and Baraka expressed concern about the possibility of children being detained in the building. The mayor said it violates the law to refuse access to fire inspectors, health inspectors and uniform code of construction inspectors.
GEO Group contends they are using an old certificate of occupancy from 2007, but Baraka says it’s invalid.
"The attempt by local and state officials to stop the opening of a lawful federal immigration processing center at the Delaney Hall facility in Newark is another unfortunate example of a politicized campaign by sanctuary city and open borders politicians in New Jersey to interfere with the federal government’s efforts to arrest, detain, and deport dangerous criminal illegal aliens in accordance with established federal law," a spokesperson for the group told Fox News Digital in a statement last month.
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"These politically motivated tactics threaten both public safety and the local economy and are based on bogus claims about the Delaney Hall facility, which previously operated as a federal immigration processing center for six years under President Obama’s administration, without opposition from local political leaders," the statement continued.
Baraka, who is running for governor of the Garden State, denied politicizing the issue.
"The reality is, this is not a Republican or a Democratic issue, in my mind. It's an issue of human rights. It's an issue of due process. It's the issue of the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States," he said.