Democrats see pending federal charges against Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-N.J.) over a scuffle with immigration agents as a politically motivated prosecution by the Trump administration designed to chill opposition from lawmakers.
Alina Habba, the interim U.S. attorney for New Jersey, announced Monday she would pursue charges against McIver for assaulting a law enforcement officer, accusing her of having “slammed her forearms” into officers outside a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention center.
The charges are the first brought against a sitting lawmaker under the Trump administration.
McIver’s colleagues expressed horror at charges they argue represent a warning sign of a slide into authoritarianism.
“Let’s be clear, she did not do anything wrong. She was doing her job as a member of Congress. Anybody saying otherwise is telling a lie,” said Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.), vice chair of the House Democratic Caucus, during a Tuesday press conference.
“The goal of these agents was to intimidate members of Congress, to intimidate people who were gathered there, but Rep. McIver and the House Democrats are not going to be intimidated from doing our jobs.”
McIver had gone to visit Delaney Hall with two other New Jersey Democrats, Reps. Bonnie Watson Coleman and Rob Menendez. Lawmakers are permitted to make unannounced visits to detention facilities, but chaos erupted after ICE officers blocked another member of the party, Newark, N.J., Mayor Ras Baraka (D), from entering, later arresting him.
Charging documents released Tuesday say McIver yelled “Hell no!” when ICE officials began the arrest and accused her and other members of having “surrounded the Mayor and prevented HSI from handcuffing him and taking him into custody.”
The filing says McIver “used each of her forearms to forcibly strike” an ICE agent.
However, video footage paints a more complex picture, one in which McIver is seen being jostled between agents in a messy scene.
McIver said she did nothing wrong — and rejected entreaties from the Justice Department to sign a plea deal because she said doing so would have required making a false admission.
“Well, the Justice Department and Alina Habba wanted me to admit to doing something that I did not do, and I was not going to do that once again. I came there to do my job and conduct an oversight visit, and they wanted me to say something differently, and I’m not doing that,” McIver said Tuesday on CNN. “I’m not going to roll over and stop doing my job because they don’t want me to, or they want to neglect the fact that we needed to be in there to see what was going on and that detention center.
“And so, absolutely, no, I was not going to do that.”
Rep. Seth Magaziner (D-R.I.), who serves on the House Homeland Security Committee with McIver, said she was being targeted as a warning sign to other lawmakers.
“It’s purely political, and it’s an attempt to try to intimidate members of Congress out performing our oversight duties. And it’s not going to work,” he said. “The law is very clear that members of Congress are to be granted access to ICE detention facilities to perform oversight.”
“I mean, after this scuffle, whatever it was outside the facility, they were still invited in and given a one-hour tour. I mean, that’s not something you do if a serious crime has been committed,” Magaziner added. “And I’ve looked at the video footage. The idea that any of McIver’s actions in the video footage rise to the level of felony is laughable.”
Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) also noted the tour as evidence officials did not view McIver’s behavior as criminal.
“If what she did was purportedly so awful that it results in criminal charges, how is it possible they literally gave her a tour of the facility afterwards?” he said at a Tuesday press conference.
McIver is now the only elected official facing charges stemming from the incident. Prosecutors dropped the trespassing charges brought against Baraka shortly before announcing the charges against McIver.
“She was trying to prevent the unlawful arrest of the mayor of Newark. And guess what? She was right,” Lieu added, noting the dropped charges. “This is a baseless, politically motivated distraction.”
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem took a different tone Tuesday, defending the pushback against the trio of lawmakers, as well as Baraka.
“They can conduct oversight, but senator, what I would ask is that they understand that that doesn’t mean they could show up with a mob with the intention to break in and assault law enforcement officers. That’s what happened at Delaney Hall last week,” she said in response to questioning from Sen. Andy Kim (D-N.J.).
“We were accommodating that when those individuals showed up, and they decided instead to break in.”
Rep. Mike McCaul (R-Texas), a former federal prosecutor, also backed the charges.
“She deserves it,” he said. “I think she was the most aggressive, is my understanding. So it was probably the clearest cut case that they can bring forward,” he said.
“And I think they need to make an example out of — you just can’t do that. I know you’re a member, but you can’t obstruct and assault law enforcement like that.”
President Trump also defended the charges, telling reporters on Capitol Hill that “the days of woke are over.”
“That woman was out of control. She was shoving federal agents — she was out of control. The days of that crap are over in this country. We’re going to have law and order,” Trump said.
While Democrats defended McIver, the charges came at a busy time for lawmakers amid debate over the reconciliation package.
Aguilar suggested the timing was significant, saying they were meant to distract from unpopular provisions included in the GOP’s reconciliation package.
“They want us to be outraged, and we are, but they want us to only talk about this,” he said.