Rep. LaMonica McIver, a Democrat from New Jersey, learned last week she must face trial for allegedly assaulting federal officers outside an ICE detention facility back in May.
Video footage shows Rep. McIver, wearing a bright red jacket, putting her hands on at least two ICE agents near the front gate. An unnamed man behind her is seen holding her back.
The wild and violent scene of pushing and shoving reportedly happened when ICE agents arrested Newark’s mayor, Ras Baraka, for trespassing on the property.
McIver faces three counts of assaulting, resisting, and interfering with a federal officer. The congresswoman tried to use the Speech or Debate Clause, found in Article 1 in the U.S. Constitution, to dismiss her case on the grounds she was acting in her capacity as a member of Congress. That legal argument did not work, however.
"Impeding an arrest, whether lawful or unlawful,” U.S. District Judge Jamel Semper wrote in his order, “goes beyond any reasonable definition of oversight and, accordingly, exceeds the safe harbor of legislative immunity.” Semper was appointed by Joe Biden.
Meanwhile, the left-wing group Indivisible is urging its members to contribute to Rep. McIver’s legal defense via Act Blue. In a Nov. 16 email, viewed by AFN, Indivisible reported "bad news" on the congresswoman's criminal case, referring to the judge's ruling.
“The politically motivated charges were a warning shot meant to chill dissent and intimidate a co-equal branch of government from performing its constitutionally-mandated oversight duty,” the email states.
The email does not mention the assault charges against McIver nor the allegation the congresswoman put her hands on agents.
Indivisible, the group behind the "No Kings" protests, requires its protesters to follow a "Commitment to Nonviolence" policy.
AFN sought comment from Indivisible about the email, in particular its failure to address the charges, but did not receive a reply.
Democrats accused of ‘unhinged smears’
On liberal news shows and in Congress, ICE agents who are hunting down illegal immigrants are being compared to the infamous Gestapo agents who hunted down Jews and troublesome Germans during Adolf Hitler’s reign.
ICE agents are “kidnapping and disappearing people on the streets of the United States,” Rep. Pramila Jayapal, who referred to ICE as terrorists in a social media post, recently told CNN.
Abigail Jackson, a White House spokesperson, told AFN that ICE agents have witnessed a “1,000 percent increase” on physical assaults because of “unhinged smears” from Democrat politicians.
“The Trump administration’s top immigration enforcement priority,” Jackson continued, “is removing the countless dangerous criminal illegal aliens that the Biden administration let waltz through their open border and have been terrorizing American communities.”
Bill Melugin, a Fox News correspondent, reported similar statistics this week. Citing figures from the Department of Homeland Security, he said vehicle-related rammings against ICE agents have jumped a whopping 1,300% over this time in 2024.
At least some of those vehicle-related incidents are being perpetrated by U.S. citizens, including white liberal women. Videos uploaded to social media show women using automobiles to follow and block ICE vehicles, or attempt to do so, to stop what they call "Gestapo" agents from hauling away their "neighbors," referring to illegal immigrants.
With a Trump administration goal to find and arrest 3,500 illegal immigrants daily, DHS reported in September it had deported 271,484 noncitizens when the federal government’s fiscal year ended. That number represents a whopping 90% jump from the previous year before Election Day.
ICE agents are also actively looking for approximately 1.5 million illegal aliens who have a final order of removal from an immigration court.
How has the crackdown on illegal immigration affected the U.S.? According to a DHS post on X, the foreign-born population in the U.S. has dropped 2.2 million in 2025. That number comes from approximately 555,000 noncitizens deported by ICE and another 1.6 million who have self-deported.
