Well, the Trump administration on Thursday announced it will open the largest immigrant detention center on the East Coast right here in Newark, a 1000 bed facility at Delaney Hall near Newark Airport.

It's all as the white House continues its mass deportation efforts.

Delaney Hall housed immigrant detainees from 2011 to 2017, and its private owner, GEO Group, has been trying to reopen since amid a legal battle with the state over a law barring private and public companies from contracting with Ice to house detainees.

Immigrant advocates and many Democrats immediately blasted the 15 year, $1 billion contract, including Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, who said the detention center isn't welcomed in his city.

Mayor Baraka joins me now.

Mayor, good to talk to you.

A lot happening here.

In your statement, you said that the, that ice, the Geo group, they haven't reached out for the proper permits or property use requirements here.

What exactly are those and what legal recourse do you have to push back on this, which you've said you'll do?

Yeah, we have the same recourse we have when any other developer or a building.

First you have to get change of use permitting at the planning board hasn't been done.

If you did work on a building, you have to get permits to do that.

They did not get any city permits to, start work, finish work.

And once the work is done, it has to be inspected.

This is the building code.

You see, code of the state of municipalities is the same.

They could have got private contractors, but we mean private permit folks to do inspections.

But we still have to sign off on that.

We have not, done that, as well.

So I don't know how they got permits.

They haven't gotten a five permit, haven't got, elevator permits.

So.

And they don't have a certificate of occupancy.

Certificate of occupancy is what all buildings need to ensure that they can open so people can go inside of them, even at even a temporary, seal, issued to some building so they could start allowing people in as they finish small things.

They don't even have that.

So, for them to say that they're ready to open is just not true.

Yeah.

I mean, they gave a timeline of June, so a couple of months there to get that done.

Would your administration seek to block those permits or occupancy, or requirements?

We don't have no, we don't have any grounds to block anything you can't do that's unlawful.

The reality is they they have to go through the permitting process.

If they don't go through that, then, the building can't be opened.

Did you or anyone in the administration, mayor, get any type of heads up that this deal was coming?

They sent me a letter that I received the day that, the press came out and said they signed the contract.

I got a letter that morning from the Geo Group.

So a couple of hours of notice.

Did you feel at all like this decision was retaliatory in nature?

I mean, of course, you were all over national headlines after the raid.

The seafood market in your city, on workers there?

No, I don't think it's retaliatory.

They were trying to do this for some time.

We were opposing it for some time.

Is there any legal recourse that the state has where the state could step in, on your behalf?

Because, as you said, it's not welcomed in your city.

Well, I mean, there are, things that you have to do.

You have to have two community meetings, you know, that that's contractual in their contract and, and planning board, you have to have community meetings with the planning board as well, and the community has to opine on that, and the planning board has to approve or disapprove of your change of use.

And what the community says impacts the decisions of the planning board.

I don't have any control over the planning Board.

The state doesn't have any control over the planning board.

Is an independent board, selected by by myself and other folks from the community.

And they sit on that board, to protect the community, in ways that they think it should be protected.

So they have to go before the planning board to get a change of use.

If folks are detained from new Jersey, and instead of being flown, elsewhere in the country, Texas, what have you, is there any benefit to these folks who are detained, being able to stay a little closer to home?

Well, we would say that if we thought they were, if they were following people's, the Constitution of the United States, upholding people's democratic rights through due process, we don't think that that's happening and we don't, which is why we don't want to be part and parcel of what's going on.

We don't want them to raid, a fish market and, you know, violate people's Fourth Amendment rights and then pull them and house them in these places under the, thin, thin veil that these people are criminals.

So we don't want to participate in that.

We don't want to be involved in that in any way.

Obviously, if folks, have criminal records, if they've been convicted of a crime like any other person, whether they documented or not, we have is a nation of laws.

If you commit a crime, you go to jail, you get arrested.

The judge decides what happens to you and a jury.

Obviously we we support that.

And if, you know, somebody is convicted of a crime, through a jury and a judge, then they should have a place that's close to them.

On that note, very quickly.

What are you hearing?

Are you hearing anything at all about future Ice operations in your city?

Oh, I mean, they communicate with our law enforcement, now, which is good.

I mean, at least to tell us where they're going and what's happening.

We want to make sure that folks aren't getting their establishments raided houses, ran into unlawfully people being stopped without cause on the street simply because how they look, the color of their skin, the accent that they may have, or the neighborhood that they, may be in.

Mayor Baraka, thanks so much for joining us.

No problem.

Thank you.