New Jersey
New Jersey mayor arrested for protesting at migrant centre
The mayor of New Jersey’s largest city has been arrested after allegedly trying to force his way into a migrant detention facility.
Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, who is running for New Jersey governor, “committed trespass and ignored multiple warnings”, to leave Delaney Hall, a detention facility being run by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), according to acting US attorney for New Jersey Alina Habba.
Baraka was accompanied by three Democratic members of Congress, who were not arrested. They say they were there to conduct “oversight” to ensure that the facility is not violating any building safety ordinances.
It is unclear whether Baraka faces criminal charges.
“The Mayor of Newark, Ras Baraka, committed trespass and ignored multiple warnings from Homeland Security Investigations to remove himself from the ICE detention center,” Ms Habba, who previously worked as a personal lawyer to Donald Trump, wrote on X.
“He has willingly chosen to disregard the law. That will not stand in this state. He has been taken into custody. NO ONE IS ABOVE THE LAW.”
A statement from the Department of Homeland Security said that a group of protesters, which included the Democrats, “stormed the gate and broke into the detention facility” as a bus with illegal migrants was being brought inside the fenced perimeter.
“These members of Congress storming into a detention facility goes beyond bizarre political stunt and puts the safety of our law enforcement agents and the detainees at risk,” the statement adds.
The department said it would have granted the members a tour of the 1,000-bed facility had they requested one.
New Jersey’s Democratic Governor Phil Murphy said he was “outraged” by Baraka’s arrest and called for him to be immediately released.
New Jersey Democratic lawmakers Rob Menendez Jr, Bonnie Watson Coleman and LaMonica McIver were also present during the protest.
City officials allege the private firm that signed a contract with ICE did not obtain proper permits and blocked necessary inspections. The firm has told media they haver the proper permits.
Earlier on Friday, Congresswoman Watson Coleman posted on social media: “We’re at Delaney Hall, an ICE prison in Newark that opened without permission from the city & in violation of local ordinances.
“We’ve heard stories of what it’s like in other ICE prisons. We’re exercising our oversight authority to see for ourselves.”
In another post, Congresswoman McIver said that Baraka “did nothing wrong” and had already left the facility when he was arrested.
The move comes as federal agencies continue their crackdown on illegal immigration, following up on a key campaign promise made by President Trump.
New Jersey
Governor-elect Sherrill Nominates Tom Hauck to Serve as Director of Homeland Security – Insider NJ
Governor-elect Mikie Sherrill announced today that she will appoint Marine Corps Veteran Tom Hauck to serve as New Jersey’s Director of Homeland Security. Hauck is currently serving as the Director of Intelligence and Operations of New Jersey’s Office of Homeland Security, where he leads the state’s counterterrorism and counterintelligence efforts, works in coordination with the FBI and local law enforcement, and implements intelligence collection and outreach programs to keep communities safe.
“I’m on a mission to deliver for New Jersey, and that means first and foremost keeping our residents safe. Tom brings decades of professional law enforcement experience that will help us do just that. As Director of Homeland Security, Tom will help us protect houses of worship, run the nation’s first state-level cyber information-sharing and incident response center, and be a key part of our preparations to welcome the world to celebrate both the FIFA World Cup and America’s 250th anniversary,” said Governor-elect Sherrill.
“I am honored to continue to serve the State of New Jersey as Director of Homeland Security. I look forward to working alongside the Governor-elect to lead the Office in our mission to intercept and mitigate threats before they reach communities. Together, we will continue to run the nation’s premier cyber information sharing center, work with state and local law enforcement to protect communities, and be a partner in preparing New Jersey to safely host world-class events this summer,” said Tom Hauck.
Thomas Hauck joined the New Jersey Office of Homeland Security and Preparedness (NJOHSP) in July 2022 as the Director of the Intelligence and Operations Division. Mr. Hauck oversees the activities of three bureaus that work in close collaboration with federal, State, and local partners: Operations Bureau, Intelligence and Analysis Bureau, and Mission Support Bureau. He leads NJOHSP’s collaboration efforts on counterterrorism, domestic terrorism, counterintelligence, and other specific criminal matters with the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force and other law enforcement entities. He also implements intelligence collection and outreach programs and resources to help NJOHSP meet its mission of helping to keep the residents and visitors in New Jersey safe. Mr. Hauck brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to the agency, having served the FBI for two decades, most recently as an Assistant Special Agent in Charge and Compliance Officer at the FBI’s Newark Field Office. Prior to the FBI, he served in the U.S. Marine Corps as an Intelligence Officer/Captain.
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3-minute read
Charter schools explained. What is a Charter School?
What exactly is a Charter School? Let’s break down the basics: what they are, where they came from and how they work.
Paul Wood Jr, NorthJersey.com
New K-12 bills aimed at curbing inflated salaries and nepotism by improving transparency in the state’s public charter schools are headed to Gov. Phil Murphy for signing, coinciding with a state comptroller’s report that accuses a prominent South Jersey charter school of violating state laws.
The school installed a private vendor to oversee its management without due process, with the school superintendent appointing herself as the vendor’s CEO and naming other family members to key leadership positions, the report said.
The new proposals address transparency, governance, athletics, budgets and salaries for top leadership, said Harry Lee, head of the state’s charter school lobby, the New Jersey Public Charter Schools Association.
They also reward high-performing charter schools by making it easier for schools to consolidate, and introduces a 10-year-renewal clause, up from a five-year renewal, through the state Department of Education.
Story continues below photo gallery.
“These bipartisan bills modernize New Jersey’s 30-year-old charter school law by strengthening transparency, accountability and oversight, while continuing to support high-performing charter schools,” said the bills’ sponsor, state Sen. Vin Gopal, D-Monmouth. “Public dollars deserve public accountability, and New Jersey’s students and families deserve nothing less.”
The comptroller’s report targeted CAPS Greater Asbury Park Charter School. News reports detailed the charter school executive director’s husband renting out school property and receiving cash for uniform sales that were not documented.
School staff members called attention to corrupt practices for three years, ending in the board of trustees firing the executive director and her husband in 2024, the comptroller’s report said.
The state has also identified other murky practices, such as school authorities installing CAPS Inc. as its charter management association through a contract process that bypassed competitors and gave it “sweeping authority.”
Several high-performing charter schools in the state, including in Plainfield and Paterson, operate under the umbrella of CAPS, or College Achieve Public Schools.
While many charter schools in the state have been compliant with the law, there were outliers that made it necessary for legislators to act and update the state’s charter schools law, which dates back to 1995, Lee said.
“This bill provides consistency and will require more transparency around school leader contracts,” Lee told NorthJersey.com. “We had issues of a couple of school leader salaries that were out of control. This will absolutely clamp down on that.
“This also improves governance,” Lee said. “So there’s now new requirements for governance around qualifications, residency, where one-third of school trustees have to live or work in the district or region in which the charter school is located, as well as new training requirements.”
Prevents athletic ‘super teams’
The bills will also prevent the creation of “super teams” in high school athletics, after CAPS Greater Asbury Park faced allegations that it built a winning basketball team that won a state title with players recruited from all over the state, including Trenton and Irvington, who were motivated to transfer to CAPS to train under a reputed coach.
If the bills become law, every charter school will also have to post all board of trustees meeting notices, meeting dates and the minutes of each meeting on the charter school’s website in accordance with the provisions of the Open Public Meetings Act. A second bill prohibits charter schools from imposing further criteria that would narrow the pool of students already selected by lottery, bars them from advising or counseling enrolled students to leave the school, and lays out rules for interscholastic athletics participation.
The proposals have the support of two parties that have historically opposed each other — the powerful public school teachers’ union, the New Jersey Education Association, and the New Jersey Public Charter Schools Association.
Critics and many public school advocates have long accused charters of siphoning off public funds from public districts, while serving selective populations. The NJEA, which opposed them for years on the grounds that they adhered to fewer accountability measures, views the new bills as a step toward addressing this.
Public charters, on the other hand, are viewed by many as a solution for underserved students, as evidenced in improved test scores and student performance in the state’s six urban districts where most of the 85 schools are. An analysis of 2025 test scores on the New Jersey Student Learning Assessment showed that 71% of charter school students in six urban districts, Camden, Jersey City, Plainfield, Trenton, Paterson and Newark, were more likely to read at grade level and 65% more likely to do math at grade level compared with their district peers, the state charter association said.
Charter schools enroll students through a free lottery entered by parents. The schools’ chargers, or “contracts,” can be revoked at any time by the governor’s office if they do not meet key benchmarks of student performance and fiscal and organizational sustainability. However, like public schools, charters are free of cost and are run primarily using taxpayer money from sending school districts, based on the number of students the districts send.
The Garden State is turning up the heat on parents to help prevent unruly behavior by teenagers.
It’s been an ongoing problem that has played out in the past few years in several beach towns and other communities.
Two bills were signed into law this week by Gov. Phil Murphy that build on prior efforts to crack down on the type of disruptive and violent antics seen in towns throughout the state.
“I think it’s smart to try and, like, kind of corral this issue a little bit, because it’s definitely gotten worse as I’ve gotten older,” Ocean City resident Madelyn Adamson said. “Making sure the parents kind of control their kids a little more is probably the way to go.”
One of the laws aims to hold parents and guardians more accountable by imposing consequences on them.
Any adults who have shown neglect or disregard for supervising their kids who incite public brawls could be charged with a disorderly persons offense.
The grown-ups could also get fined $1,000 for unruly behavior by teens that leads to property damage.
A second law requires the state Attorney General to create a crowd management training program for police in areas hit by more than one pop-up party or flash mob in the past year.
While public safety is at the heart of the new laws, officials say there’s an economic aspect to all of this as well, especially in shore towns that are highly dependent on tourism.
“A Memorial Day weekend public brawl that’s all over the news? People don’t want to come down the shore the next weekend and that hurts all kinds of small business, large business,” NJ Senator Paul Moriarty said.
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