Oversight visit brings Rep. McIver back to migrant jail at center of her criminal case

Rep. LaMonica McIver speaks outside of Delaney Hall after she, Rep. Rob Menendez, and New York Rep. Yvette Clarke visited the Newark migrant jail for an oversight visit on Dec. 23, 2025. (Photo by Anne-Marie Caruso/New Jersey Monitor)

NEWARK — Days after immigration officials announced the death of a detainee at Newark migrant jail Delaney Hall, Rep. LaMonica McIver visited the facility for the first time since prosecutors allege she assaulted federal agents there during a melee in May.

McIver’s visit coincided with a new filing in the Newark Democrat’s criminal case in which her attorneys accuse prosecutors of failing to produce key evidence that they say shows bias among the agents involved in the scuffle, including one agent’s use of a racial slur in a group text the morning of the incident that led to McIver’s indictment.

“It is very traumatic to be back here personally,” McIver told reporters after Tuesday’s visit. “But at the same time, I have a responsibility to serve the people and protect the people of the 10th Congressional District, and that is why I had to put aside my traumatic experience here and come back here and represent them and see what is happening inside of this awful detention center.”

Reps. Rob Menendez (D-08) and Yvette Clarke (D-New York) joined McIver for the three-hour visit to Delaney Hall. They said there were no incidents involving staff of prison owner Geo Group, but they left with major concerns about inmates’ medical care, their access to food and water, and prison officials’ transparency.

They said dozens of detainees they met with are sick and coughing, are housed in overcrowded units, don’t have access to proper food, and are forced to wait weeks for medical attention. Detainees compared the jail to a slaughterhouse, Menendez said, “because they know they will hit a dead end no matter what they try to do.”

“These are human beings. These are people who are taken out of our communities and are being held here — on your dime, on the American taxpayer’s dime, while Geo Group makes more money than they ever have in their entire history,” Menendez said. “That’s what’s happening inside there.”

More than 950 people are being held at Delaney Hall, double the number from when Menendez last visited. Lawmakers said many of the detainees don’t have criminal records, and some were arrested in courthouses and legal offices while working on their immigration status. Other detainees are in the country legally on student visas, and one man inside is married to a U.S. military service member, they said.

As they have in the past, the Democratic lawmakers condemned the escalating detention tactics of the Trump administration and called on the jail to close. McIver said they’ll continue to conduct oversight regularly until it shutters.

Menendez was also with McIver on May 9, when the two, along with Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-12), visited the jail for an unannounced inspection. Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, a Democrat, was also there, and federal agents arrested him and accused him of trespassing (they quickly dropped the charge when video surfaced of a prison guard inviting Baraka onto the property).

During the scuffle that ensued when agents moved to detain Baraka, prosecutors allege, McIver shoved two guards, and they later charged her with assault. McIver has pleaded not guilty and has argued that agents caused the chaos that erupted when Baraka was arrested.

One of her attorneys, Lee Cortes, demanded in a Tuesday filing in her case that the government release more communications between U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents the day of Baraka’s arrest. They said a “paltry” 54 text messages were ultimately produced after U.S. District Court Judge Jamel K. Semper in October ordered their release.

Those text messages, Cortes says, are material and favorable to McIver’s defense. In a May 10 text message sent in a group chat, an ICE officer who witnessed Baraka’s arrest says they doubt any Congress members present would be arrested because their conduct “wasn’t enough like a swing or anything,” according to Cortes. One of the agents McIver is accused of assaulting was in that group chat and did not dispute that characterization, the letter reads.

Cortez also alleges that an ICE agent accused of shoving McIver that day used a racial slur in a Signal group chat with other agents. Another officer responded to say a Black officer included in the chat “is having a stroke right now,” and other agents responded with laughing emojis, Cortes’ letter says.

“That type of behavior is material impeachment evidence for any of the officers who participated in the Signal group, particularly given the group’s later aggressive treatment of Mayor Baraka and Congresswoman McIver,” wrote Cortes.

Semper rejected McIver’s bid to throw out two of three counts she faces. He is still deciding on the third.

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