Democrats involved in tense encounter at ICE facility say Trump administration is trying to intimidate them

A DHS spokesperson told CNN the lawmakers could be arrested, saying the department has “body camera footage of some of these members of Congress assaulting our ICE enforcement officers, including body slamming a female ICE officer.” The incident culminated in the detention of Newark Mayor Ras Baraka.

Three Democratic lawmakers who were involved in a tense encounter outside an Immigrations and Customs Enforcement facility in Newark, New Jersey, are accusing the administration of “intimidation” after a Department of Homeland Security official suggested they could be arrested. Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman, who joined CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday alongside fellow New Jersey Democrats, Reps. LaMonica McIver and Robert Menendez Jr., said the lawmakers haven’t heard from DHS after the tense encounter on Friday that culminated in the detention of Newark Mayor Ras Baraka. “We have no idea what they have in mind, other than to create an environment of intimidation just by claiming that perhaps we might be subject to arrest,” Watson Coleman said. “Nothing happened other than the chaos that they created themselves.” The lawmakers traveled for a tour of the facility as part of their Congressional oversight duties and had been there for nearly two hours before the confrontation as ICE officials gave them “the run around,” Watson Coleman said. But the situation escalated when Baraka was asked to leave the premises and was detained. He was released after several hours. The immigration officials eventually took the lawmakers on the tour after the confrontation, McIver said. “They took us on a tour, offered us a soda in the midst of doing this, never apologized or said anything about the confrontation and the chaos that they caused outside,” McIver said, adding that the lawmakers were able to speak to detainees while inside.