On May 28, a mob of anti-ICE protesters swarmed federal agents outside Newark's Delaney Hall detention center, blocking ICE vehicles and physically obstructing law enforcement operations. The city's police department was nowhere to be found. Not late. Not understaffed. Completely absent — on orders from Mayor Ras Baraka.
Then Baraka had the audacity to release a statement blaming ICE.
You can't make this stuff up. Well, actually, you can — it's called sanctuary city policy, and Newark has turned it into performance art.
As Fox News reported, the scene outside Delaney Hall was pure chaos. Protesters surrounded ICE vehicles, preventing agents from carrying out their duties. The confrontation escalated to the point where federal agents were forced to deploy pepper spray just to do their jobs. Meanwhile, Newark's finest were off somewhere — apparently under strict orders to let the mob run wild.
But here's the detail that really puts the cherry on this disaster sundae. Protesters dressed up as "fire police" — complete with official-looking vests — and started directing traffic and placing barriers around the scene. Fake cops. Playing dress-up. Running the streets of an American city while the real police stood down because the mayor told them to.
Let that sink in. Costumed activists were directing traffic in Newark while actual sworn officers with badges and training sat on their hands. This is what "sanctuary" looks like in 2026 — a city that protects criminals from federal law enforcement and abandons its own police force in the process.
Baraka's response was predictable. Rather than acknowledge that his own policies created the vacuum that the mob filled, he pointed the finger at ICE. The federal agents who showed up to enforce actual laws — passed by Congress, signed by the president — were apparently the problem. Not the mob. Not the fake police. Not the mayor who ordered the real police to vanish.
This is the sanctuary city playbook in its purest form. Step one: tell your cops to stand down when ICE shows up. Step two: let protesters and agitators fill the power vacuum. Step three: when things inevitably go sideways, blame the feds. Step four: fundraise off the outrage.
And the citizens of Newark? They get to live in a city where the mayor picks and chooses which laws get enforced based on political ideology. Where federal agents need pepper spray to get through a crowd because local police won't clear the road. Where random people in vests can play traffic cop because the real ones have been benched.
ICE agents shouldn't have to fight through a mob to enforce immigration law in an American city. Period. These are federal officers doing a job that Congress authorized and the president directed. But in Ras Baraka's Newark, the mob gets a police escort and the police get a day off.
We've seen this movie before — in Portland, in Seattle, in every blue city that decided law enforcement was optional when the cause was fashionable enough. Newark just added its name to the list.
Remember this the next time a progressive mayor tells you sanctuary cities are about "compassion." There was nothing compassionate about May 28 in Newark. Just a mob, some pepper spray, fake cops in vests, and a mayor who thinks federal law is a suggestion.