A federal appeals court has declined to dismiss criminal charges against a sitting US congresswoman who visited an immigration facility as part of congressional oversight.
LaMonica McIver, a Democrat who represents New Jersey’s 10th congressional district, was charged with interfering with an arrest in May 2025 outside Delaney Hall, an immigration detention facility that has drawn protests over poor conditions inside.
Criticizing a decision that she said “emboldens” Donald Trump’s officials to pursue people who seek to hold the administration accountable, McIver said she would “not fold” to pressure.
McIver has pleaded not guilty and argued she is immune from prosecution under the US constitution’s speech and debate clause because she was doing her job. She has argued that she has been selectively prosecuted by the Trump administration, and sought to have the case thrown out.
McIver, a mother of one who is expecting her second child this fall, previously told the Guardian the Trump administration is trying to make an “example” of her by charging her. She is the only member of Congress whom Trump’s Department of Justice has indicted.
A lower court ruled against dismissing the charges, which she appealed to the third circuit court of appeals.
In a 2-1 ruling, the appellate court wrote that McIver’s actions outside Delaney Hall were “non-legislative”, meaning they would not make her immune from prosecution because she was fulfilling her job duties. It ruled against dismissing two of the three courts, and sent a third, broader count back to the lower court for more fact-finding.
One of the courts in question “neither charges Congresswoman McIver for an act that is legislative in nature nor requires that she answer for any legislative act”, Judge Cindy Chung wrote.
“I fundamentally believe that the court got it wrong here. To protect the people, their elected representatives must be authorized to conduct oversight of the executive branch without fear of retaliation,” McIver said in a statement. “Today’s decision chills that authority and emboldens the Trump administration to continue persecuting our most vulnerable communities, those who try to defend them, and anyone who dares hold the president or his lackeys accountable.
“I will not fold to this administration. We are exploring every possible option. The administration will not stop me from doing my job or standing for what is right. This is not over.”
On the 9 May 2025 visit to Delaney Hall, McIver joined other elected officials in an inspection of the facility, a task given to members of Congress that the Trump administration has sought to limit.
Ras Baraka, the Newark mayor, who joined the officials, was asked to leave because he was not a member of the US Congress, and he was arrested for trespassing. Charges against Baraka were subsequently dropped, but McIver was charged with assaulting, impeding and interfering with an arrest. The charges carry up to 17 years in prison.
Charging documents noted that people, including members of Congress, surrounded Baraka to prevent his arrest and alleged that McIver shouted “hell, no” repeatedly. The Washington Post, after analyzing video from many angles, said McIver “made contact with at least two agents” in the scuffle, but that it was “difficult to discern the force of the contact and to what extent it was intentional or the result of the chaotic moment”.
Paul Fishman, McIver’s attorney, said after Wednesday’s decision: “As we argued before the court, it is too dangerous if the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security are able to thwart members of Congress from inspecting an ICE detention facility, create chaos, and then prosecute those members and pretend it was their fault.”
