A Daily Reid: How to build an autocracy

The Trump regime is arresting American judges and elected officials; and that's just the start

We are descending, and fast.

Mayor Ras Baraka was arrested by federal agents over the weekend

Over the weekend, the Trump regime took their maniacal zeal to force as many brown people as possible out of the United States ahead of the 2045 white minority deadline to new lows — arresting the mayor of the largest city in New Jersey, for the invented crime of enforcing his city’s code ordinances against the whims and wishes of the fascists who are currently running the U.S. It all started at a former rehab center.

From Rehab facility to private prison

Delaney Hall in Newark, New Jersey, used to be a 1,000-bed drug rehabilitation facility and halfway house; a place that cared for people in dire need. No more. A private prison company, the GEO Group, which also happens to be a major Trump donor and the first corporation to max out to his presidential campaign, and one of the biggest financial beneficiaries of his and his regime’s repugnant mass deportation policies, alongside the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, inked a $1 billion, 15-year contract with the property owner in February, to turn Delaney Hall into one of Trump, Tom Homan and White House ghoul Stephen Miller’s prized internment camps (apparently to include Alcatraz, soon. I mean, how could the maga faithful resist the potential spectacle of migrant escapees being devoured by the sharks that reportedly surround the notorious and very much closed prison???)

Problem: the new lessees apparently failed to secure a certificate of occupancy. And according to the mayor, Ras Baraka, that means they are violating the law. In fact, according to a lawsuit filed by the mayor’s office, the facility needs to not just have a certificate of occupancy in order to operate, they have to get it updated annually. From the Associated Press:

The new facility sparked pushback from immigrants rights groups and the mayor in particular. Baraka sued GEO Group soon after the deal between the company and ICE was announced. The case got transferred from state to federal court, where a judge is considering the city’s request to temporarily block the opening of the facility.

According to a source close to the situation, the last certificate of occupancy Delaney Hall filed was 20 years ago. So for the past week, the mayor had been going to the facility, attempting to ascertain how and why they were continuing to operate illegally. Over the weekend, three members of congress went with him — in their role as federal legislative authorities with the right, without any notice, to inspect any such federal facility.

But rather than fight it out in court, it appears that unknown Trump officials decided to target Mayor Baraka with the intent to intimidate him, the congress members, and anyone else who thinks they can stand in the way of the kidnapping, warehousing and deportation of people who have the nerve to be not white in America. They apparently failed to understand who Ras Baraka is. Not only is he the son of poet and civil rights activist Amiri Baraka, he’s also a man who stands on principle, and for the letter and spirit of the law. He has been vocal in condeming previous ICE raids in his city, including one in which a U.S. military veteran was arrested without a warrant, along with several undocumented workers at a seafood store. But unlike the insurrectionists on the right, he has been using the courts, and his presence as mayor, to stand up and fight back, including against the presence of a private immigrant gulag in Newark. Clearly, that does not sit well with the regime.

From The Guardian:

Trump officials ‘created confrontation’ that led to arrest of Newark mayor

Democratic Congress members who visited detention center with mayor say Ice officials ‘created the chaos’

José Olivares

Sun 11 May 2025 14.47 EDT

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Trump administration homeland security officials were responsible for starting the confrontation on Friday at a New Jersey immigration jail that led to the arrest of Newark’s mayor as well as threats to detain three members of Congress, the representatives said Sunday on CNN’s State of the Union.

The Democratic representatives Bonnie Watson Coleman, LaMonica McIver and Rob Menendez – all of New Jersey – visited the controversial Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) detention center known as Delaney Hall on Friday to inspect the facility. As they waited to enter Delaney Hall, Newark’s mayor, Ras Baraka, arrived – and as he left the property, he was arrested outside by Ice officials accusing him of trespassing, leading to a commotion at the entrance of the jail.

There evidently was shoving and pushing between federal immigration officials and the members of Congress, which Watson Coleman, McIver and Menendez blamed on the immigration officials.

On CNN’s State of the Union, the Congress members said immigration officials had ample opportunity to deescalate the situation before someone called in and instructed masked agents to arrest Baraka.

“They created that confrontation, they created that chaos,” McIver said.

Since the ordeal on Friday at Delaney Hall, homeland security officials have accused the Congress members of staging a “bizarre political stunt” there while also accusing McIver of “bodyslamming” authorities at the scene.

McIver rejected those allegations.

“I honestly do not know how to bodyslam anyone,” McIver said. “There’s no video that supports me bodyslamming anyone.

“We were simply there to do our job – there for an oversight visit.”

For their part, officials have threatened to arrest the three members of Congress in connection with Friday’s commotion at Delaney Hall. Watson Coleman told CNN on Sunday that those threats stemmed from the Trump administration’s “determination to intimidate people in this country”.

Here’s how it played out:

The woman in red is New Jersey Congresswoman McIver, who appears to be getting shoved by the federal officers. The members were reportedly planning to have a press conference after inspecting the facility. Instead, Rep. Menendez held a press availability to describe the ordeal he witnessed and endured:

The Regime, including Trump lawyer-turned-administration legal spokesperson Alina Habba, and the maga fanbase are now outright lying about what you saw above with your own eyes; with the regime releasing an Orwellian press release essentially accusing the congress members and the mayor of what amounts to a “breaking and entering” and an attempt to “storm” the facility:

Members of Congress Break into Delaney Hall Detention Center

Delaney Hall Currently Holds Murderers, Rapists, Suspected Terrorists, and Gang Members

NEWARK, NJ –Today, as a bus of detainees was entering the security gate of Delaney Hall Detention Center, a group of protestors, including two members of the U.S. House of Representatives, stormed the gate and broke into the detention facility. Representatives Robert Menendez, Jr. and Bonnie Watson Coleman and multiple protestors are holed up in a guard shack, the first security check point.

“Members of Congress storming into a detention facility goes beyond a bizarre political stunt and puts the safety of our law enforcement agents and detainees at risk. Members of Congress are not above the law and cannot illegally break into detention facilities. Had these members requested a tour, we would have facilitated a tour of the facility. This is an evolving situation,” said Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin.

The allegations made by Newark politicians that Delaney does not have the proper permitting are false. We have valid permits, and inspections for plumbing and electricity, and fire codes have been cleared.

But then, DHS released the bodycam footage of the arrest, which shows no such storming, breaking or entering:

Just the facts:

The mayor of Newark was not *protesting,* nor were the members of congress. They were doing what the people of New Jersey hired them to do: conducting oversight over a facility that is warehousing people this regime is snatching off the street and warehousing in a private prison, enriching its owners but leaving open the question of whether human rights are being protected or violated inside.

According to sources with knowledge of the events, the mayor and members had waited for over an hour to be allowed through the entry gates, while the gathering crowd began chanting. “let the mayor in!” A Delaney security guard asked the mayor to come to other side of the gate so the crowd would calm down.

He complied, and remained there for over an hour, unmolested, until someone called in DHS. It’s unknown who made that call, but it had to be someone with fairly high access, since ultimately, the mayor was arrested not by any old official, but rather by the special agent in charge of Homeland Security Investigations, Ricky Patel. That’s unusual — rather like being arrested by the chief of police. And witnesses say the fifteen officers who accompanied Patel went straight for the mayor and only arrested him, while one officer commanded other officers to take the mayor to the ground, which thankfully they did not do.

The mayor was reportedly interrogated him for four hours and was charged with trespassing — in his own city, at a facility he is duty bound to inspect, after being ASKED to step inside the facility gates in order to quell the actual protests.

There is a hearing scheduled for Thursday May 15th and there are already plans circulating for Baraka’s supporters torally outside the courthouse.

I’m also told that police officers in Newark are expressing a desire to be separated from this mess, which only serves to make them feared and loathed by local communities, while local people are afraid. People who have family members being housed in the ICE detention facility— which again, may not even be legally operating — are reportedly being told that they will not be allowed to visit their loved ones if the protests continue.

Note that because Newark is a sanctuary city and New Jersey is a sanctuary state, law enforcement officers are not required to assist federal agents in detaining people or question people’s citizenship. But federal law enforcement relies on local law enforcement assistance. And after this incident, Newark, and the county it sits in, pulled any such local support after the arrests and persecution of Mayor Baraka and the three local congress members.

The governor of New Jersey went public protesting Mayor Baraka’s address and reportedly, both New Jersey Senators and AOC have been in touch with him.

It’s notable that the governor spoke out, since a fellow governor, Tony Evers of Wisconsin, is being threatened by the regime’s official Beelzebub, Tom Homan, that he could be arrested if he stands in the way of the brownshirting of U.S. immigration. The regime is also threatening to prosecute the three members of congress … for assaulting police officers.

Things to understand here are that we have crossed a serious rubicon. This regime is arresting judges, mayors and threatening to arrest and prosecute members of congress and governors if they fail to lay down and allow masked, sometimes unknown agents to kidnap anyone they choose off the streets of even sanctuary cities and ship them off to wherever they want, either in this country or in some wartorn hellhole overseas. They’re looking at Angola, Equitorial Guinea and Syria as some possible additions to their rent-a-gulag in El Salvador. And if you think they won’t eventually start sending U.S. citizens there, not for crimes, but for thinking or saying the “wrong” things, you’re not paying attention.

It should also be noted that Mayor Baraka is a Democratic candidate for governor. He’s currently sitting in third place in the polls, behind Congresswoman Mikie Sherrill and the mayor of Jersey City. But to be clear, he is in this moment, the one fighting hardest for the moral cause of just policing, just immigration policy, and the rule of law.

The primary is June 10th.

More on this story to come. But the fact of the matter is that we have gone over the tipping point. The Trump regime is throwing the rule of law aside and utilizing every lever of federal law enforcement for revenge, retribution, and what sure feels like ethnic cleansing. If this isn’t a constitutional crisis, I don’t know what is. As someone close to the mayor put it on background:

Mayor Baraka was arrested on public land in the city where he was born and raised, while fulfilling his sworn duty to protect the people of Newark - including those held in federal detention. If this can happen to an elected official, it can happen to anyone.

The clearest sign that something is deeply wrong? Public officers, funded by taxpayers, using force while hiding their identities. That’s not law enforcement, that’s intimidation. And it has no place in a democracy.

If due process depends on your politics, if constitutional protections only apply to those in agreement with those in power, then we are watching the erosion of America in real time.

I’ll be speaking with Mayor Baraka live onstage at the State of the People Power Tour rally tomorrow at around 2 p.m. You can register to attend the rally and get more information by clicking here.