Lawmakers will hold a hearing next week on “Threats to ICE Operations,” in the latest escalation from the GOP after a chaotic protest at a New Jersey Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility that involved three House Democrats.
The House Judiciary Subcommittee on Oversight, led by New Jersey Republican Rep. Jeff Van Drew, will hear Tuesday from former ICE and Department of Homeland Security officials about their detention centers, including the Delaney Hall Facility in Newark, New Jersey, where the protest took place in opposition to the Trump administration’s aggressive crackdown on undocumented immigrants.
Republicans have brandished the chaos during the incident to attack the House Democrats in attendance — New Jersey Reps. Rob Menendez, LaMonica McIver and Bonnie Watson Coleman — and cast the incident as a unlawful political stunt during which they accused the Democrats of attempting to storm a federal facility.
A DHS spokesperson has threatened that the administration could arrest those lawmakers, and Rep. Buddy Carter (R-Ga.) has advocated for stripping the Democrats of their committee assignments. The Democrats, however, have argued they were at the facility to conduct their regular oversight duties of federal immigration operations.
The administration has also already started to penalize other Democratic officials in attendance. Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, a Democratic candidate for governor, was arrested at the protest and charged with trespassing.
