Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-NJ) has filed an appeal Monday against a ruling that she should stand trial for hitting a federal agent with her arm outside an ICE facility.

Earlier this May, McIver went with other congresspeople to the Delaney Hall immigrant detention center in Newark, New Jersey. She is accused of hitting an ICE officer with her arm while protecting Newark Mayor Ras Baraka from arrest. The Department of Justice filed three felony charges against her for assaulting, interfering with and resisting a federal officer, according to The Hill.

McIver asked the court to dismiss the charges, saying she had legal immunity as she was a member of Congress making a legal oversight visit to the ICE facility. She also alleged she was being targeted by the Trump administration, according to Politico. District Judge Jamel Semper, a Biden appointee, ruled in November that the charges would stand.

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“Defendant’s active participation in the alleged conduct removes her acts from the safe harbor of mere oversight,” Semper wrote. “Lawfully or unlawfully, Defendant actively engaged in conduct unrelated to her oversight responsibilities and congressional duties.”

McIver filed her appeal on Monday to the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals, repeating that she is being unfairly targeted by the Trump administration.

“This appeal is for everyone who is standing up to this administration as they try to operate without oversight, silence the people who oppose them, and shut down those who protect the vulnerable,” McIver said in a statement. “They want to make an example out of me, but I will not let them. I will not be bullied out of doing my job and protecting our communities. Not now, not ever.”

Last week, McIver returned to Delaney Hall as part of another oversight visit. Her visit was nearly two weeks after the death of Haitian immigrant and detainee Jean Wilson Brutus, who died the same day he was entered into the facility, according to NJ.com.

“It is very traumatic to be back here, personally,” McIver said. “But I had to put aside my traumatic experience here, and come back here and represent for them what is happening inside of this awful detention center.”

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President Donald Trump refused to say whether the military or CIA had struck a Venezuelan drug-smuggling facility when it’s unclear the strike actually happened

Trump made the claim during a press conference following his meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday afternoon. A reporter had asked for further details on Trump’s Friday claim that he had “knocked out” last week a Venezuelan facility where drug-smuggling ships “come from.” Venezuela has yet to comment on the alleged attack or even confirm that it happened, according to The Hill.

“Was the facility taken out by the U.S. military, or was it another entity like the CIA?” the reporter asked in a clip surfaced by reporter Aaron Rupar.

READ MORE: GOP Lawmaker Suggests US ‘About to Go In’ to Venezuela for Oil

“Well, I don’t want to say that. I know exactly who it was, but I don’t want to say who it was. But you know it was along the shore,” Trump said.

He was then asked if he’d talked to Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. Trump said he had “pretty recently” but that “nothing much comes from it,” before changing the topic to immigration.

“They’ve sent billions of dollars of drugs in, but maybe just as bad, they’ve sent hundreds of thousands of people in from jails, from prisons, from mental institutions and insane asylums. The drug lords, the drug dealers, were all sent into our country,” Trump said. “Tren de Aragua, probably the worst gang. They cut off people’s fingers. One man made a phone call to complain about them. He cut off their hand. They cut off his hand. ‘Don’t ever make a phone call again. We’ll cut off your hand, and after that, we’ll kill you,’ they said. That was in Colorado.”

Trump still doesn't understand the difference between political asylum claims and insane asylums pic.twitter.com/uBNhCyvZSi

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) December 29, 2025

Trump appears to be referring to a story from 2024, where Brawnis Dominique Suarez Villegas, accused by the Department of Justice as a member of the Tren de Aragua gang, allegedly “directed and approved the torture and disfigurement” of a Denver man, according to KUNC-FM.

KUNC-FM reports that Suarez Villegas allegedly told fellow gang members to ransom a Denver man to his family for $30,000. The money did not come through and Suarez Villegas is said to have ordered the removal of the man’s finger, not his entire hand.

Suarez Villegas was indicted by a grand jury on Thursday for the robbery of a jewelry store in June 2024, according to CBS News. He is currently in a Bogota, Colombia prison and will be extradited to the United States.

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Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) said that President Donald Trump was reticent to reveal the identities of any of the men accused of abusing children in the Epstein files was because “My friends will get hurt.”

Greene made the allegation in a new interview with The New York Times published Monday morning. She said that Trump told her the reason while on a call after a press conference where Greene said she may expose the names of some of those listed in the files related to disgraced financier and convicted sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein.

Trump had called Greene in her office, and a staff member told the Times that the entire office could hear the president shouting at Greene over a speakerphone. The article alleges that she was confused why Trump was so upset, and her question led to the remark.

READ MORE: DOJ Issues ‘Bizarre’ Disclaimer Defending Trump in Latest Epstein Files Dump

Greene also alleges that she asked Trump to invite some of Epstein’s victims to the White House, but he balked at the suggestion. Trump reportedly told her that the women abused by Epstein hadn’t done anything to warrant a White House invitation. Greene says this is the last time she talked with the president.

She says the outburst blindsided her as previously she had believed Trump’s assertions that he was not in the Epstein files.

“The story to me was that I’d seen pictures of Epstein with all these people. And Trump is just one of several. And then, for me, I’d seen that Bill Clinton is on the flight logs for his plane like 20-something times. So, for people like me, it wasn’t suspicious. And then we’d heard the general stories of how Epstein used to be a member of Mar-a-Lago, but Trump kicked him out. Why would I think he’s done anything wrong, right?” Greene told the Times about her beliefs prior to the phone call.

Though Greene was formerly a staunch ally of Trump, her interest in the Epstein files caused Trump to turn on her. She joined with Reps. Thomas Massie (R-KY) and Ro Khanna (D-CA) to force a House vote compelling the Department of Justice to release all of its files on the Epstein case, with the only redactions to protect victims’ names.

The bill ultimately passed both House and Senate and was signed by Trump, giving the DOJ a December 19 deadline to release the information, But when the date rolled around, only a portion of the files were released. What was available was heavily redacted, with names of co-conspirators and others blacked out.

Shortly after Trump called her a “traitor” on his Truth Social platform over her calls to release the Epstein files, Greene announced that she would be resigning from the House January 5, midway through her term.

Image via Reuters