Four detainees at Newark ICE facility are missing, senior officials say
The detainees were being held at the Delaney Hall facility in Newark, where Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has been holding individuals who are facing possible deportation. The four people were unaccounted for Thursday night, and federal authorities were looking into whether they were still on the grounds of the facility, or had somehow escaped, senior officials said.
Chopper 4 was over the scene Thursday afternoon showing law enforcement and ICE agents canvassing the area.
The wife of one detainee told NBC New York she rushed over to Delaney Hall after she got a call from her husband about a lockdown in his pod and a protest about inhumane conditions at the detention center. The wife of that detainee said she was worried about her husband's safety.
A search was ongoing.
Local and state authorities were notified of the missing detainees, and some additional resources were called in to assist with the situation, according to the senior officials.
Delaney Hall made headlines in May after protests broke out at the 1,000-bed, privately owned facility.
Democratic U.S. Rep. LaMonica McIver was charged in a criminal complaint with two assault charges stemming from a May 9 visit to the center. She was indicted on Tuesday; The indictment includes three counts of assaulting, resisting, impeding and interfering with federal officials.
By law, members of Congress are authorized to go into federal immigration facilities as part of their oversight powers, even without notice. Congress passed a 2019 appropriations bill that spelled out the authority.
McIver said in a statement that she had 'serious concerns about the reports of abusive circumstances at the facility,' and that her office had reached out to ICE for answers.
At the same visit that resulted in McIver's charges, Newark Mayor Ras Baraka was arrested on a trespassing charge, which was later dropped. Baraka later filed a lawsuit against acting U.S. Attorney for New Jersey Alina Habba over what he said was a malicious prosecution.
In a statement, Baraka expressed concern for what had transpired at Delaney Hall on Thursday, 'ranging from withholding food and poor treatment, to uprising and escaped detainees.'
The mayor went on to say the situation 'lacks sufficient oversight of every basic detail — including local zoning laws and fundamental constitutional rights. This is why city officials and our congressional delegation need to be allowed entry to observe and monitor, any why private prisons pose a very real problem to our state and its constitution...We must put an end to this chaos and not allow this operation to continue unchecked.'
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The Independent
2 hours ago
- The Independent
What is the Muhammad Ali Revival Act and how will it affect boxing and fighters?
On Wednesday evening, the boxing world became gripped by conversations about a new bill that could change the sport and the way fighters are paid. Purportedly for the better. Potentially for the worse. The bill, named the Muhammad Ali American Boxing Revival Act, was introduced to the US Congress by Representatives Brian Jack and Sharice Davids, with the intention of altering federal regulations around the sport. It is a bill that has been backed by TKO, the UFC ownership group that is crossing into boxing, with UFC president Dana White co-promoting September's seismic Canelo vs Crawford fight in tandem with Saudi adviser Turki Alalshikh. The name of the bill comes from the Muhammad Ali Boxing Reform Act of 2000 (widely referred to as the 'Ali Act'). 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There was also the criticism that the Act had laid out a series of rules for Congress to enforce, but without clear methods of how to enforce them. But to a more pertinent point: on Wednesday evening (23 July), there were altogether different criticisms being aimed at the Revival Act, the main one being that it could see UFC's widely derided style of fighter pay cross into boxing, harming the earning ability of athletes while claiming to do the opposite. Why does the UFC receive criticism over fighter pay? The UFC recently settled an antitrust lawsuit, which claimed the mixed martial arts (MMA) promotion suppressed fighters' ability to negotiate; it was suggested that the UFC had essentially forged a monopoly in MMA. In October, the UFC agreed to pay $380m to a group of former fighters who had competed under its banner between 2010 and 2017, with approximately 1,100 deemed as affected and 97 per cent of them applying to receive funds. The fighters in question received compensation payments between $100,000 and $1m, according to the firm that handled the lawsuit. In general, average fighter pay in the UFC is believed to be much lower than in boxing, though UFC president White has continuously insisted that the media does not know the real numbers. The Independent understands that many fighters enter the promotion on a contract where they earn $12,000 to fight and another $12,000 if they win – with those figures increasing after three bouts, and with $50,000 bonuses available (Fight of the Night, Performance of the Night). The UFC antitrust lawsuit also confirmed numerous reports that, in 2010, the UFC took home approximately 80 per cent of its overall earnings, with fighters left with less than 20 per cent. In comparison, basketball's NBA and its players received around 50 per cent each at the time, and they still do. Currently, players in the WNBA (Women's NBA) are pushing the league for a similar pay system. But how does the UFC's track record on fighter pay relate to the Revival Act, beyond the fact that its parent company (as of 2023) is backing the new bill? What specific changes does the Revival Act seek to make? The Revival Act seeks to allow the creation of Unified Boxing Organisations (UBOs), which would serve as alternatives to boxing's current sanctioning bodies: chiefly the World Boxing Council, World Boxing Association, World Boxing Organization, International Boxing Federation, and International Boxing Organization. Just as those bodies have their own champions, so would UBOs. One UBO would be Zuffa Boxing, likely overseen by UFC president White and Saudi adviser Alalshikh. The UBOs would also pay a minimum national compensation of $150 per round for professional boxers, a figure that might be seen as substantial by very low-level boxers but pitiful by anyone else. The new system would also bid to improve the minimum health insurance available to boxers and access to anti-doping programmes – which can be costly for promoters. As it stands, the minimums in those aspects are controlled by individual states in the US. Many undercard boxers compete in six-round fights, meaning – if they went the distance – they would be expected to earn $900 under the new system. That is understood to be less than a boxer would earn on most shows now, and the sum would struggle to cover the costs of coaching, sparring partners, travel and/or accommodation. These are expenses that fighters are often expected to pay during camp. So, what now? It is worth stressing that this act has not yet been passed. It is likely to be referred to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, the same House that received the 1996 and 2000 acts, with a vote in the House of Representatives being the next step. Thereafter, it would be sent to the US Senate.
The Guardian
5 hours ago
- The Guardian
How Trump has supercharged the immigration crackdown
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Despite Trump's claims that his administration is seeking out the 'worst of the worst', the majority of people being arrested by Ice now have no criminal convictions. Detention facilities have been increasingly overcrowded, and the US system is over capacity by more than 13,500 people. The number of deportations, however, has fluctuated as the administration pursues new strategies and policies to swiftly expel people from the US. The US government has deported more than 8,100 people to countries that are not their home country. Within weeks of Trump's inauguration, Ice tripled its number of daily arrests. Daily arrests spiked further after a heated meeting on 21 May, when Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff, and Kristi Noem, the Department of Homeland Security secretary, ordered Ice officials to aim for 3,000 arrests a day, or a million a year. In early June, Ice arrests peaked at about 1,000 a day – far short of Miller's benchmark, but 42% higher than the average daily arrests in May and 268% higher than in June 2024. On 4 June, Ice arrested nearly 2,000 people – the highest number of people arrested in a single day, according to nearly 10 years of arrest records. For the first time since Ice started releasing detailed data, the number of non-criminal arrests overtook the number of arrests of people with criminal convictions or pending charges. That month, during large-scale raids in Los Angeles, armed federal agents acting on Miller's explicit instructions began detaining immigrant workers at car washes, at garment factories and outside Home Depot stores. Agents with armored vehicles and military-style gear descended upon public parks; masked agents grabbed street vendors and restaurant workers. Although Trump has repeatedly claimed his administration is trying to arrest and deport 'dangerous criminals' and the 'worst of the worst', most of the people Ice is now arresting have never been convicted of a crime. In early July, a federal judge granted a temporary restraining order against the government's aggressive immigration sweeps in LA, barring federal agents from stopping people in the region unless there is 'reasonable suspicion' that a person is violating immigration law. The ruling came in response to a lawsuit, filed by immigrant advocacy groups, that accused immigration officials of racially profiling residents. Ice arrests are up across the country and have more than doubled in 38 states. Most of the arrests have occurred in Texas, Florida and California – each of which have large immigrant populations. Arrests have especially ramped up in the southern and western states that have eagerly backed Trump's immigration agenda, volunteering state resources and law enforcement personnel to work with federal officials seeking to detain immigrants. As the Trump administration ramps up immigration arrests, Ice detention facilities are becoming increasingly overcrowded. The average number of people held in Ice detention jumped from 40,000 right before Trump's inauguration, to about 55,000 in late June. Congress, however, last allocated funding for only about 41,500 detainee beds. In legal filings following the LA raids, immigrants who were arrested said they were held in federal buildings without adequate access to water, food and medications. Family members and lawyers struggled to locate and contact people in Ice custody. After a visit to the Adelanto detention center in California's high desert in June, the US representative Judy Chu wrote that detainees were being held in filthy, 'inhumane' conditions and had not been provided a change in underwear for 10 days. Across the US, immigrants in detention have reported overcrowded conditions and moldy and inadequate food. Human rights experts have also raised concerns about the detention of children with their parents at the newly recommissioned 'family detention centers' in Texas – warning that even short periods of incarceration can have major mental health and developmental consequences in young people. Families, too, have said there is a lack of fresh, drinkable water and child-friendly food in these facilities. The immigrant rights group Raices said that one of the families it represents had a nine-month-old baby who lost more than 8lbs while in detention. The president's omnibus spending bill, which was signed into law this month, has allocated $45bn to expand Ice's sprawling detention system – roughly doubling the agency's capacity to detain people over the next several years. The agency is concurrently changing policies to make it easier to detain more people and for longer periods of time. In a recent memo, Ice's acting director Todd Lyons, declared that immigrants fighting deportation in court will no longer be eligible for bond hearings – meaning that millions would have to remain in detention for months or years while their cases are processed. Despite deploying federal agents across the US to arrest more immigrants and despite incarcerating a record number of immigrants in detention facilities, the Trump administration has not managed to dramatically ramp up the scale of deportations. 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The administration has also been seeking to make deals with countries around the globe to accept immigrants that the US cannot easily deport to their home countries, ramping up so-called 'third-country' deportations. In late June, the US supreme court cleared the way for the administration to send immigrants to countries where they have no connection, without a meaningful opportunity to contest the deportations on grounds that they could face torture. The administration has sent more than 200 Venezuelan nationals to El Salvador, where they remain incarcerated in the country's most notorious mega-prison. It has also sent families from Russia to Costa Rica, and men from various countries to South Sudan and Eswatini – two countries in the midst of political upheaval and human rights crises.
NBC News
5 hours ago
- NBC News
Republicans plan to use the threat of impeachment as a key midterm issue
WASHINGTON — Impeachment may be nothing that Donald Trump wants, but it is shaping up to be a galvanizing midterm election issue that preserves his party's control of Congress, Republican strategists said. Seldom do sitting presidents pick up seats in midterm congressional elections. Trump faces an especially daunting challenge in that he relies on a devoted electoral base that may feel no compelling reason to vote if his name isn't on the ballot. One way to persuade Trump supporters to turn out is to press the point that he could face impeachment a third time if Democrats wrest control of the House in November 2026, the GOP operatives said. The message to Trump's loyal following is a simple one: If you like Trump and want to protect him from an avenging Democratic majority, vote Republican. Impeachment 'will be the subtext of everything we do, whether it's said overtly or not,' said a senior Republican strategist who is involved in congressional races and speaks to Trump. The strategist, like others in this article, was granted anonymity to speak candidly. John McLaughlin, a Trump pollster, said: 'The Trump voters are happy and complacent right now. And we have to get them fired up for next year. We have a lot of work to do. If President Trump is not on the ballot, it's harder to get them out.' 'We know what the stakes are in the midterm elections,' he added. 'If we don't succeed, Democrats will begin persecuting President Trump again. They would go for impeachment.' As they workshop midterm campaign messages, Democratic leaders are making the opposite calculation. They've concluded impeachment is a losing issue. Through bitter experience, they've seen that impeaching Trump has neither driven him from power nor crippled him politically. Two previous Democratic-led impeachment efforts failed to garner the two-thirds Senate majority needed to convict Trump. Despite those proceedings and a quartet of criminal indictments after he lost the 2020 election, Trump remained sufficiently viable to win again in '24. 'You've got to be careful: You're liable to make him a martyr,' former Rep. Bob Brady, chairman of the Philadelphia Democratic Party, said in an interview. Today, many Democratic leaders say they see impeachment as a distraction from bread-and-butter issues that may have more success in mobilizing voters — chiefly, the cost of living. 'The No. 1 thing that folks want to hear about is what are you doing to lower costs. That's been our top focus,' Rep. Suzan DelBene, D-Wash., who chairs the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said in an interview Wednesday. Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., who was the Democrats' lead manager in impeaching Trump over the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, said his party's focus is Trump's 'terrible agenda' — not impeachment. 'We've already impeached him twice,' Raskin said. 'So obviously that's not a complete solution, given that he is able to beat the two-thirds constitutional spread. So I don't think anybody thinks that's going to be the utopian solution to our problems.' Despite those demurrals, Republicans take it as a given that Democrats will move to impeach Trump anew if they capture the House. 'The Democrats are so moronic and crackbrained they never learn from their mistakes,' said Steven Cheung, the White House director of communications. 'Instead of actually working for the American people, they are so consumed and obsessed with destroying this country because they suffer from a debilitating case of Trump Derangement Syndrome that has rotted their pea-sized brains.' While there is no plausible scenario in which Democrats gain the supermajority needed for conviction in the Senate, impeachment would be a distraction that impedes his agenda in the back half of his term, Republicans said. 'Yeah, impeachment is a concern for the president, and it's a concern for all of us,' said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., a Trump ally. A Republican strategist involved in Senate races said, 'It's not only the threat of impeachment; it's the idea that the administration won't be able to get anything done for the American people because all the Democrats will be focused on is impeachment.' Republican campaigns will use mailings and text messages to push out that point, targeting voters who might otherwise sit out the midterms, the person said. Trump ultimately sets the tone for his party, and GOP operatives said they don't want to front-run him by marshaling the impeachment argument on their own. But Trump has deployed it in the past. Ahead of the 2018 midterm elections, he also raised the specter of impeachment. Trump told supporters in Montana that year that if he were to get impeached, 'it's your fault, because you didn't get out to vote.' Democrats wound up winning back the House, but Republicans kept control of the Senate. So far in Trump's second term, congressional Democrats have been impeachment-curious but wary of going all-in. In May, Democratic leaders dissuaded Rep. Shri Thanedar, D-Mich., from moving forward with plans to seek to impeach Trump. He had sponsored a resolution that accused Trump of a litany of 'high crimes and misdemeanors,' including his threat to annex Greenland, punishment of private law firms and imposition of tariffs. Last month, Rep. Al Green, D-Texas, forced an impeachment vote that wound up failing. Democratic leaders helped defeat Green's measure, which sought to oust Trump for launching attacks on Iran without congressional approval. Some Democratic pollsters said there's no need for the party to be so tentative. A party leadership that persists in calling Trump an existential threat to democracy shouldn't shy away from impeachment as a solution, they contend. Surveys and focus groups suggest that impeachment could, indeed, galvanize Democratic voters who don't feel motivated to vote next year, they added. 'One of our biggest problems is the people who are dissatisfied with what is happening under Trump feel they can't do anything and often feel Democrats aren't doing anything,' said Celinda Lake, a Democratic pollster. Impeachment, she added, 'suggests we can do something: We can make a statement, we can stand up, we can fight.' 'And in that sense, it's a motivator.' A survey at the end of May by Research Collaborative, a strategy group for progressive causes, asked likely voters who disapprove of Trump how they'd like to see Democratic leaders resist his administration and policies. A whopping 86% wanted to articles of impeachment introduced, compared with 14% who said they didn't favor impeachment. 'Voters who are open to voting for Democrats are saying consistently that they want Democrats to match their actions to their words and use every tool available to them to fight the MAGA agenda, including impeachment,' said Tara Buss, senior director of research at the collaborative. 'They want Democrats to stand up and fight,' she added. 'They feel that they're under attack and impeachment is quite literally the only constitutional remedy that can stop the attack.'
