Welcome to another episode of Lurie Breaks It Down, a podcast where we dig deeply to connect the dots on the issues that are shaping our world.

I'm Lurie Daniel Favors, author, activist attorney, and host of the Lurie Daniel Favors show

on Sirius XM's Urban View, Channel 126, where talk empowers and becomes action.

One of the things I always tell my audience is this.

When we see the government acting in really egregious ways towards marginalized

communities, just know that they're just practicing on those marginalized communities so that they

can perfect their practices before they use them against all of us. Keep that in mind as I tell

you the following story about how black elected officials, both mayors and members of Congress,

are being used as target practice for the

Department of Justice. Let's get up today on the news that really matters and is

having an impact on what we're experiencing today, May the 21st, 2025. We have

recently spoken with Mayor Ros Baraka, who is the mayor of the City of Newark,

New Jersey, the largest city in the state of New Jersey.

He is also running for governor of that state. And last week, Mayor Baraka and a number of other

members of Congress alive at Delaney Hall, which is a building that had been converted into a

detention center, but it had been converted in violation of New Jersey state law. Now, the mayor

has oversight over this facility

since it sits in his district and the congressional representatives who accompanied him for

this oversight visit, congressional representatives who included people like Representative

Bonnie Watson Coleman and Representative La Monica McIvor, in addition to a number of others,

they all have the responsibility of providing oversight

due to their official capacity over facilities that are being used as ICE detention centers.

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