New York
3 Lawmakers Involved in Newark ICE Protest Could Be Arrested, DHS Says
A spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security suggested on Saturday that three Democratic members of Congress might face assault charges after a confrontation outside an immigration detention facility in Newark during the arrest of the city’s mayor, even as new details emerged that appeared to contradict the Trump administration’s account of the surrounding events.
The three lawmakers — Representatives Bonnie Watson Coleman, Rob Menendez and LaMonica McIver of New Jersey — were inside the facility on Friday for what they described as a congressional oversight visit, which they have the right to conduct under federal law. The facility, Delaney Hall, received its first detainees last week and is eventually expected to hold as many as 1,000 migrants at a time.
Soon after the legislators left the building on Friday afternoon, Newark’s mayor, Ras J. Baraka, was arrested by the head of Homeland Security Investigations in a brief but volatile clash that involved a team of masked federal agents wearing military fatigues and the three lawmakers. He was then taken to a separate federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in the city and released five hours later.
Precisely what led to Mr. Baraka’s arrest on federal trespassing charges, in a public area outside a facility that is owned by a private prison company, remains unclear. But much of what unfolded was recorded by journalists, as well as by cameras worn by law enforcement officials and videos taken by activists protesting nearby.
Tricia McLaughlin, the Homeland Security spokeswoman, told CNN on Saturday that a body camera video showed “members of Congress assaulting our ICE enforcement officers, including body-slamming a female ICE officer.”
The episode was under investigation, she said, and charges against the three lawmakers were “definitely on the table.”
But videos the Trump administration released to Fox News appeared to be far from conclusive, and accounts of the confrontation from witnesses and the members of Congress differ in significant ways from the government narrative.
On Friday, after Mr. Baraka’s arrest, Ms. Watson Coleman, 80, described being “manhandled” by agents who were attempting to arrest the mayor, who was at the center of a large group of aides and supporters in front of the gates to Delaney Hall.
“There was just consistently, and across the board — especially with the folks in uniform — no respect for who we were and no respect for the mayor,” she said Saturday on MSNBC.
In February, the Trump administration entered into a 15-year, $1 billion contract with GEO Group to turn Delaney Hall into a large detention center as ICE rushed to expand its detention capacity nationwide to meet President Trump’s mass deportation goals.
Newark officials have since argued in federal court that GEO Group, one of the country’s largest private prison companies, is operating without a valid certificate of occupancy. After Delaney Hall began housing detainees last week, Mr. Baraka, a Democrat who is running for governor, began showing up regularly and requesting that he and fire officials be allowed to enter and inspect the facility.
Each time, the facility’s personnel turned them away and fire officials issued tickets for code violations.
Federal officials and a GEO spokesman said the mayor had ignored established processes for requesting entry. They have also said that the facility had all the required permits, and have described the mayor’s repeated visits as a political stunt.
On Friday, the dispute escalated significantly.
That morning, Mr. Baraka said he stopped by Delaney Hall to request entry, was denied and left to take one of his children to school. He returned hours later for a news conference that the three lawmakers had planned to hold after touring Delaney Hall.
A security guard opened Delaney Hall’s locked front gate and allowed Mr. Baraka to enter, but barred him from joining the congressional representatives inside, Newark officials said.
“If I was on that property, I was invited there,” Mr. Baraka said Saturday in Newark. “Somebody allowed me. I didn’t climb the fence, I didn’t kick the door down.”
He and several aides waited for more than an hour inside the perimeter of the detention center before he was asked to leave, according to Mr. Baraka and two of his aides.
By that point, Mr. Menendez, Ms. Watson Coleman and Ms. McIver had left the building and were standing near the mayor, according to a video taken by Viri Martinez, an immigration activist who witnessed the arrest.
After several requests that he leave, Mr. Baraka complied, according to two members of his group and video recordings.
“Guy told me to leave, I left. I’m gone,” Mr. Baraka said Saturday.
However, more than a dozen federal agents went out through the gate and arrested him anyway, placing him in handcuffs and leading him away.
Alina Habba, the acting U.S. attorney for the District of New Jersey, has said that Mr. Baraka was arrested after he “committed trespass and ignored multiple warnings from Homeland Security Investigations to remove himself.”
Ms. McLaughlin described the chaotic scene as a “mob,” with the lawmakers, their aides and federal law enforcement officers jostling just outside the facility’s gate.
“We weren’t trying to start anything,” Ms. Watson Coleman said on MSNBC. “We weren’t trying to do anything. We were trying to protect the mayor from what we thought was an unlawful arrest.”
Footage from a body-worn camera shared by Fox News shows the legislators and a scrum of officers outside the facility’s fence. At one point, Ms. McIver appears to make contact with a law enforcement officer in fatigues and a face mask.
A second video also shared by Fox News captures a verbal disagreement between Ms. McIver and several law enforcement officers. Ms. McIver, who is standing with her back against a car and is surrounded by officers in tactical gear, can be heard saying, “Ma’am, he just assaulted me.”
In the video, she and Ms. Watson Coleman walk a few paces away before Ms. McIver stops and turns to face the officers.
“You can’t talk to a congresswoman like that,” she says. “You will pay.”
Mr. Baraka has pushed back against the government’s characterization of the moments before and after he was taken into custody.
“This is all fabrication,” Mr. Baraka told reporters on Saturday. “They get on the media and they lie and lie and lie and lie.”
He said the roughly five hours he spent in custody, before a federal magistrate judge ordered him to be released, were “humiliating.”
By Saturday, Mr. Baraka’s arrest had become a local political flashpoint.
Two of Mr. Baraka’s Democratic opponents in New Jersey’s race for governor — Sean Spiller, the president of the New Jersey Education Association, and Representative Josh Gottheimer — showed up early Saturday at Delaney Hall and spoke to reporters. The three other Democrats running for governor — Representative Mikie Sherrill; Steven Fulop, the mayor of Jersey City, N.J.; and Steve Sweeney, a former State Senate president — also condemned Mr. Baraka’s arrest in statements.
“This is not who we are as a country, certainly not who we are as a state,” Mr. Spiller said at the detention center. “Because right now, we know that folks are scared.”
Mr. Gottheimer added that he and Mr. Spiller were not there as competitors in the June 10 primary.
“We’re here as protectors of democracy,” Mr. Gottheimer said. “We all have to stand up and say to Donald Trump, ‘I don’t think so.’”
Mr. Baraka seemed amused by the candidates’ robust expressions of solidarity.
“I’m glad that they are, you know, making the most of this,” he said with a chuckle.
Across the Hudson River, several New York City lawmakers and Democratic mayoral candidates joined more than 100 protesters at a rally in Lower Manhattan. Speakers praised Mr. Baraka and condemned the city’s mayor, Eric Adams, for working with the Trump administration.
“When they come for the mayors, it’s already pretty bad,” said Brad Lander, New York City’s comptroller who is running for mayor.
Another candidate for mayor, Zohran Mamdani, who represents Queens in the State Assembly, also spoke.
“What Mayor Baraka has told us,” he said, “is you cannot fight extremism with moderation.”
Mark Bonamo and Nate Schweber contributed reporting.
Welcome to Day 2 of the Metropolitan Diary challenge, part of our celebration of the column’s 50th anniversary. On Day 1, we gave you tips for identifying your New York City story. Today, we’ll help you write it. (Missed Day 1? It’s not too late to start.)
What makes for a good Diary? It’s simply a good story that happens to be set in, and capture, the essential New York-ness of the city. While this isn’t a full writing course, we do have guidance on the kinds of elements that the submissions we publish include. They typically have: a beginning, middle and end; sharp details; catchy dialogue; a bit of surprise; some humor, warmth or emotion. But there is no formula, so flouting these loose rules can be worthwhile.
Don’t worry if you don’t think of yourself as a “writer.” Focus on being a “storyteller.” Pretend you are telling your story to the person who’d most appreciate it, using whatever conversational language or pacing that would hold their attention. Do it out loud if you want, maybe give that person a call and tell them your story (or tell it to them again). Then write it down.
That’s the big picture. For more tips, read on.
Here is an example of a published Diary that we (and readers) really liked, and a few thoughts on why that may help crystallize yours.
Unacceptable
Dear Diary:
I went to a new bagel store in Brooklyn Heights1 with my son.
When it was my turn to order, I asked for a cinnamon raisin bagel with whitefish salad and a slice of red onion.2
The man behind the counter looked up at me.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I can’t do that.”3
— Richie Powers
One of this item’s best qualities is that it is short and snappy. Only 53 words! Although we will use stories of up to 300 words, many don’t need to be that long and the column doesn’t work if we don’t have a mix of long, medium and short, so we are always looking for stuff like this. Here’s another one!
At Attention
Dear Diary:
It was December 1967. I had just finished basic training at Fort Dix in New Jersey and was traveling to Boston in uniform. For reasons I no longer recall, I stopped in New York City on the way.1
Walking on the Upper East Side2 in a snowstorm, I spied another man in a uniform. He was older, and his cap bore the familiar gold band that identified him as an officer.
I rendered a snappy salute. It was not returned. 3The uniform was unfamiliar, so I guessed he was a foreign officer. Military courtesy still required me to salute.
A little farther down the street, I encountered another officer and offered another salute that went unacknowledged.4 His uniform was strange to me as well.
The third time it happened, the man I saluted ignored me while holding the door for a couple 5on their way into a large apartment building.
I realized I had been saluting doormen.6
— Stephen Salisbury
To get your storytelling muscles going, think through or jot down the answers to some of these questions.
Let’s start with setting the scene.
- When and where in the city did this happen? Is this place well-known?
- Was there anything particular about that point in your life that’s relevant?
- What did you see, hear, smell? Was there something notable about the weather?
Now, let’s move to the middle, the meat of the story.
- Did you have an exchange with someone?
- What details are important to how events unfolded, especially in setting up the ending?
And now, the end.
- What’s the resolution? Is there a punchline?
- Does the story end with a sense of shared humanity or some other warm feeling that lingers? You don’t need to name it. A good description will often allow readers to feel it too.
- Why has this experience stayed with you?
- Lines like “and that’s why I love New York” are almost always unnecessary.
That’s it. Keep your story simple and use the kind of plain language you use in conversation. You are sketching a moment in time. The details are important. Let them move the story along. Have fun and good luck.
Once you’re done, read through what you’ve got. What details are less important and can be left out? (Remember, there is a strict 300-word limit.)
Write your Metropolitan Diary however you like, on paper, on your phone or wherever! When you’re happy with what you’ve written, put your diary entry into the box below, fill out your information and submit it. You might just hear from me about including it in a future column.
This is the official submission form, so make sure to double-check your work before hitting submit.
That’s it! Submit your Metropolitan Diary.
By transmitting your submission, you grant The New York Times Company a perpetual, royalty-free license to use the submission in any medium. They may be edited, and may be republished and adapted in all media. You may reprint your story elsewhere after it appears in The Times.
65.
In or about and between December 2023 and April 2024, both dates being approximate and inclusive, within the Eastern District of New York and elsewhere, the defendants MALIK BEASLEY, also known as “Beas,” “Bease,” “MB” and “5,” WILLIAM BROWN, also known as “Willo,” EDWARD DAVIS, also known as “Ed,” “ED” and “E Davis,” ROBERT GORODETSKY, also known as “Rob,” ERNESTO PLASCENCIA, also known as “Ernie,” “Erny,” “Ernie P” and “Erny P,” and PAOLO ZAMORANO, also known as “PZ,”
together with others, did knowingly and intentionally conspire:
(a)
to conduct one or more financial transactions in and affecting
interstate commerce, which transactions in fact involved the proceeds of specified unlawful activity, to wit: (i) wire fraud, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 1343 and (ii) sports bribery, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 224, knowing that the property involved in the transactions represented the proceeds of some form of unlawful activity, and with the intent to promote the carrying on of the specified unlawful activity, contrary to Title 18, United States Code, Section 1956(a)(1)(A)(i);
(b)
to conduct one or more financial transactions in and affecting interstate commerce, which transactions in fact involved the proceeds of some form of unlawful activity, to wit: (i) wire fraud, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 1343 and (ii) sports bribery, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 224, knowing that the property involved in the transactions represented the proceeds of some form of unlawful activity, and knowing that the transactions were designed in whole and in part to conceal and disguise the
19
How can people possibly afford to live in one of the most expensive cities on the planet? It’s a question New Yorkers hear a lot, often delivered with a mix of awe, pity and confusion.
We surveyed hundreds of New Yorkers about how they spend, splurge and save. We found that many people — rich, poor or somewhere in between — live life as a series of small calculations that add up to one big question: What makes living in New York worth it?
Weixun Hu enjoys what might sound like the ultimate professional perk. New Yorkers pay some of the country’s highest taxes on their income, more than $12,000 on average per person between state and local governments. But Mr. Hu’s income tax this year? $0.
That’s because Mr. Hu, 32, who was born in Guangzhou, China, conducts social development research at an international organization, where most employees are exempt from national income taxes or reimbursed for the cost. His gross and net income are one in the same; he earns roughly $110,000 after his insurance and pension contributions.
Mr. Hu became one of New York City’s 3.1 million foreign-born residents nearly three years ago, after reassignment from a post in Bangkok in the summer of 2023. But he quickly ran into a hurdle: finding an apartment with no credit history, no tax returns and no one to co-sign a lease.
“It sounds very cool that you don’t pay taxes,” Mr. Hu said. “It also creates a lot of problems.”
He discovered that many of his co-workers landed in a handful of pricey residential developments including Stuyvesant Town. Yet renting there felt worlds apart from Thailand’s capital city, where a luxury studio in a high-rise condo with a rooftop infinity pool and premium gym might run $600 per month.
So he found a studio in Long Island City, Queens, where he has in-unit laundry and falls asleep to the sound of waves hitting the shore near Hunters Point South. His employer subsidizes $700 of his $3,900 rent, and utilities and internet cost about $150 monthly.
“It’s much better value compared to renting in Manhattan,” he said.
Saving for Tomorrow
A good deal of young adults in New York City don’t know how to drive, and expect to remain renters for most of their lives. Not Mr. Hu.
He puts away $2,000 or so a month into a high-yield savings account, aspiring to buy a car. His sights are set on a Mazda CX-5. But he expects he’ll need to pay upfront in cash, another consequence of lacking a credit or tax history — and it’ll take about three more years to build up enough.
Eventually, he wants to own a home. “I know most people in New York City don’t care,” he said. “But for me, it’s very important.”
Mr. Hu also supports his parents in their retirement, sending about $3,000 every three months. As their only child, he feels both a sense of guilt for living about 8,000 miles from home — and an obligation to pay them back for their sacrifices.
“People will say, ‘Oh, you’re single. You don’t have a wife. You don’t have kids,’” he said. “‘So all your money is yours.’”
“And I’m like, ‘Excuse me, my parents are still alive.’”
In other ways, though, Mr. Hu fits the profile of an everyday bachelor: He rarely cooks meals at home. “My oven is basically storage space.”
Rather, he searches for affordable deals on Too Good To Go, a popular app where restaurants sell excess food at a discounted price. His No. 1 spot is Chinese Musician in Greenpoint, which offers a three-course meal for $9.
Sometimes, Mr. Hu does the $16 tonkotsu ramen at Nishida Sho-ten on 49th Street for lunch, an $8 lamb over rice meal for dinner from the halal truck in front of Bellevue Hospital or a hot dog for $3.25 from Gray’s Papaya. He’ll swing by the Dollar General in Astoria to stock up on his favorite drink, Coca-Cola Orange Cream.
And he saves up for an upscale dining experience every couple of months. He recently feasted at the Michelin-starred chef Daniel Boulud’s steakhouse, La Tête d’Or, where he spent roughly $300 and ordered what he called the standout filet mignon.
The Lions Over the Knicks
For any sports buff, it’s an incredible time to live in New York City.
But for Mr. Hu, ticket prices to see the Knicks play at Madison Square Garden felt “a little bit off-putting” — and that was even before their championship run. So he started religiously following basketball at Columbia, going to games that often run $10 to $12 on the Morningside Heights campus.
Yankees games, where a 400-level seat might run $45, are a no; he opts to watch the Columbia Lions up close at Robertson Field in Inwood without charge.
He is willing to spend up to about $300 on some singular sports showdowns. He can still recall how Kylian Mbappé flew down the field at MetLife Stadium during a Real Madrid match against Borussia Dortmund last summer.
Typically, though, he elects for low- or no-cost events like this spring’s edition of the Madison Avenue Gallery Walk.
And he regularly joins free lectures at the Asia Society, where he has a complimentary membership through his employer, and at local universities like N.Y.U., where he’s met the minds behind two of his favorite video games, The Elder Scrolls and Monument Valley.
A Sense of Wanderlust
Ever since Mr. Hu can recall, he’s felt a magnetic pull to experience the world. And few things embody such a yearning as aviation.
He sometimes goes to Canarsie to watch planes land at Kennedy International Airport, studying the way pilots pull up the nose of their aircrafts and slow the descent before touching down. He’s even found others who share his passion on walks in the neighborhood.
And traveling draws him even closer to his hobby.
He spent $4,400 on a trip to Guangzhou last June to fly for the first time in an Airbus A380, the only full-length double-deck aircraft in the world. Qatar Airways is one of the few airlines that still has an active fleet — so Mr. Hu arranged his trip by way of Doha.
“Some people treat it as bragging,” he said. “But no, it’s just to admire such an incredible machine that’s very rare to be seen these days.”
“It’s a weird, niche hobby, but I’m happy spending my money on it.”
As a young man living in his seventh country — after Belgium, China, Italy, Poland, Thailand and the United Kingdom — he appreciates that as “a foreigner in this city, you don’t have to worry about whether you stand out.”
He’s relished exploring from Crown Heights to Jackson Heights, taking the train to a random stop and popping into bodegas to chat up the owners. He considers Staten Island — and its Chinese Scholar’s Garden in Snug Harbor where adult admission costs $5 — to be a hidden gem.
And when he boarded the U.S.S. Bataan during a past Fleet Week, he felt obliged to tell a Marine that he was Chinese. “He said: ‘Oh, no worries at all. Everybody can be an American’.”
“To be honest, I still don’t think it’s a value option for the money,” Mr. Hu said of New York City. “But there’s something so unique, and I think it’s that inclusiveness.”
“You don’t need to go to the world,” he said. “The world comes to you.”
We are talking to New Yorkers about how they spend, splurge and save.
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