Homeland Security released a video Saturday it said showed a congresswoman assaulting a federal officer during a scuffle when lawmakers “stormed” into an ICE detention facility on Friday.
🚨WATCH: US Congresswoman, LaMonica McIver (wearing a red blazer), storms the gate of Delaney Hall Detention Center ASSAULTING an ICE agent. pic.twitter.com/4Q1deds1tl
— Homeland Security (@DHSgov) May 10, 2025
The department, on social media, identified the congresswoman as Rep. LaMonica McIver. She was there along with Reps. Bonnie Watson Coleman and Robert Menendez Jr. and Newark Mayor Ras Baraka as they tried to get into the detention center.
In the video, the congresswoman is seen jostling uniformed agents, including one moment where she seems to throw an elbow into one officer’s back and another where she appears to strike a different officer with a fist.
“US Congresswoman, LaMonica McIver (wearing a red blazer), storms the gate of Delaney Hall Detention Center, assaulting an ICE agent,” the department said in its caption to the video.
The Washington Times has reached out to the congresswoman’s office for comment.
In her own social media posts Friday, Ms. McIver, a New Jersey Democrat, disputed Homeland Security’s characterization that she and the other lawmakers “stormed” the facility.
“We were exercising our legal oversight function as we have done at the Elizabeth Detention Center without incident,” Ms. McIver said.
She also chided Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin for leaving her out in an early statement, citing just two members of Congress — Mr. Menendez and Ms. Watson Coleman — involved.
None of the members of Congress were arrested, but Mr. Baraka, Newark’s mayor, was detained. He was later released.
Ms. McLaughlin said if the members of Congress had requested a tour, they would have been allowed in.
The incident has quickly become a new rallying point for immigration activists and congressional Democrats, who say the treatment of the lawmakers was problematic.
Democrats say that under the law, ICE is required to allow members of Congress into their facilities when they show up.
That provision was added to the law roughly five years ago, after Democrats were blocked from access during the first Trump administration.
Under the law, which ICE has posted on its website, members are allowed to make surprise visits.
“Nothing in this section may be construed to require a Member of Congress to provide prior notice of the intent to enter a facility described in subsection (a) for the purpose of conducting oversight,” the law reads.
Congressional staffers may be required to give 24 hours’ notice.
Rep. Bennie G. Thompson, the ranking Democrat on the House Homeland Security Committee, said the law was clear and ICE was in the wrong.
“ICE needs to keep its hands to itself and treat everyone with respect,” the Mississippi lawmaker said. “They are officers of the law – not Trump’s stormtroopers. If this is how they treat members of Congress when the cameras are rolling, I can’t imagine what they are doing to our neighbors in the dark of night.”
He vowed more visits.
