Federal appeals court declines to dismiss criminal charges against Rep. McIver

The court allowed Delaney Hall charges to proceed but sent McIver’s political-retaliation claim back for further review.

A federal appeals court ruled Wednesday that parts of the federal case against U.S. Rep. LaMonica McIver can move forward. The court put off deciding until after the trial whether the charges were brought in political retaliation.

Federal prosecutors have alleged that McIver, a Democrat representing New Jersey’s 10th Congressional District, slammed her forearm into a federal agent and tried to restrain him during a May 2025 scuffle outside Delaney Hall, the controversial immigrant detention center in Newark.

McIver pleaded not guilty and moved to dismiss the charges, which she has called politically motivated. She argued that her actions were protected because she was carrying out her duties as a member of Congress.

A lower court rejected that argument, and a three-judge panel from the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals upheld much of that decision on Thursday.

In a 49-page decision, the appeals court judges wrote that McIver can still be prosecuted for pushing her forearm into a Department of Homeland Security agent during the confrontation and for pushing past and allegedly striking a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent on her way back inside Delaney Hall.

But the appeals court questioned the broader charge that McIver impeded agents throughout the incident. It sent that count back to the lower court to determine whether her conduct was part of her work as a member of Congress and was therefore protected.

After the decision was announced, McIver spokesperson Hanna Rumsey said the congresswoman had been conducting “legally authorized and protected oversight of the facility” and that she should have been protected by legislative immunity.

“For that, she has been targeted, burdened with wildly expensive and time-consuming litigation, and is facing the threat of 17 years in prison,” Rumsey said. “The administration is using criminal charges to go after political opponents who dare conduct oversight of their activities — that is what was at stake in this appeal. Congresswoman McIver was first, but she will not be the last, and these protections are more critical than ever.”

The New Jersey chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, which filed a friend-of-the-court brief in support of McIver along with the National Women’s Law Center and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, criticized the decision.

“Congresswoman McIver visited Delaney Hall to carry out congressional oversight of an immigration detention facility, an essential function of accountability that she has the legal authority to do,” Executive Director Amol Sinha said in a statement.

“Rep. McIver is being targeted by the federal government because she disagrees with President Trump on some of the most pressing issues of our time, including immigration policy,” Sinha said. “Weaponizing the [Department of Justice] to target a sitting member of Congress undermines our system of checks and balances and threatens our democracy.”