The Legal Defense Fund (LDF) denounces the two assault charges announced Monday by the acting U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey against Representative LaMonica McIver. LDF further urges law enforcement officials to make the just and prudent decision to drop the charges.
On May 9, Representative McIver, along with Representatives Robert Menendez Jr. and Bonnie Watson Coleman and Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, arrived at an immigration detention facility in Newark to conduct a congressional oversight visit. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents confronted the elected officials outside the facility, and, according to Representative McIver, shoved her. On Monday, the acting U.S. Attorney for New Jersey announced that her office was charging Representative McIver with allegedly “assaulting, impeding, and interfering with law enforcement.”
Members of Congress have the right to carry out oversight inspections of federal immigration detention facilities without giving prior notice. Representative McIver, who represents the 10th congressional district of New Jersey in the U.S. House of Representatives, was not the only individual present who was charged by the U.S. Attorney’s Office. Mayor Baraka was also charged with trespassing, but those charges have now been dismissed.
In response, Janai Nelson, President and Director-Counsel of LDF, issued the following statement:
“The disingenuous and performative charges against Representative McIver must be dropped. It was her right and congressional duty to appear at the facility to conduct oversight of the center. Instead of vilifying Black women with deeply misleading narratives of disproportionate anger and violence, we must refuse to bow to the administration’s attempts to chill and, in this case, criminalize congressional oversight of the administration’s own actions.
“These charges reek of political weaponization, not justice. Using the Department of Justice as a political tool of the president against his opponents is one of the most dangerous actions the Trump administration has taken to date, and it threatens the very legitimacy of our legal system. These charges should be dropped now.”
###
Founded in 1940, the Legal Defense Fund (LDF) is the nation’s first civil rights law organization. LDF’s Thurgood Marshall Institute is a multi-disciplinary and collaborative hub within LDF that launches targeted campaigns and undertakes innovative research to shape the civil rights narrative. In media attributions, please refer to us as the Legal Defense Fund or LDF. Please note that LDF has been completely separate from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) since 1957 — although LDF was originally founded by the NAACP and shares its commitment to equal rights.
