House halts censure resolution against Rep. LaMonica McIver

Ryan Tarinelli and Chris Johnson, CQ-Roll Call on Sep 3, 2025

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WASHINGTON — The House voted Wednesday to halt a GOP-led resolution to censure Rep. LaMonica McIver, D-N.J., over an altercation with authorities outside an immigration detention facility earlier this year.

Five Republicans joined Democrats in a 215-207 vote to table the privileged resolution, which also sought to remove McIver from the House Homeland Security Committee. Without the motion, House rules would have meant a vote on the resolution later this week.

The Republicans who voted for the motion to table the resolution were Don Bacon and Mike Flood of Nebraska; David Joyce and Michael R. Turner of Ohio; and David Valadao of California. Two Republicans, Andrew Garbarino of New York and Nathaniel Moran of Texas, voted present.

The resolution cited the high-profile confrontation outside the Delaney Hall Federal Immigration Facility in Newark, N.J., which involved McIver. The congresswoman faces a three-count indictment in federal court, a prosecution Democrats say is blatantly partisan and aimed at trying to intimidate members of Congress.

Bacon, Garbarino and Moran, in a statements released through their offices, pointed to the House Ethics Committee process. Bacon said: “I don’t support the censure of Rep. LaMonica McIver because I want the Ethics Committee to finish their report on this matter.”

And Garbarino said the Ethics Committee “is best positioned and has the rightful jurisdiction to review this matter.”

“I voted ‘present’ in order to preserve the integrity of the investigation and to comply with Committee rules and fundamental due process considerations requiring that Ethics Committee Members make impartial and unbiased decisions,” Garbarino said.

A spokesperson for Turner said the lawmaker supports removing McIver from the Homeland Security Committee, intended to vote no on the motion to table and submitted a correction immediately.

Rep. Clay Higgins, R-La., filed the privileged resolution that said it would “represent a significant conflict of interest” for McIver to stay on the committee, “which is charged with oversight of Federal immigration enforcement and other national security matters.”

McIver, in a statement Tuesday, said Higgins could not make her “run scared.”

“Instead of making life any better for the people he represents, he’s seeking to punish me for doing what he and his caucus are too cowardly to do: conduct real oversight, stand up to this administration, and do our jobs,” McIver said.

Higgins, in an interview Wednesday, said McIver essentially brought it on herself. “Had she withdrawn from the Homeland Security Committee, I certainly wouldn’t have offered a resolution, even though censure [is] legitimate and called for,” Higgins said.

After the vote Rep. Barry Loudermilk, R-Ga., said he did not know why some Republicans would not back the censure resolution.

This censure resolution, he said, “has probably got the most merit” of those ones he’s seen.

An affidavit in federal court accuses McIver of slamming her forearm into a federal officer and using her forearms to “forcibly strike” a second federal officer in the May altercation. She faces a three-count indictment in federal court, with all charges related to assaulting, resisting, impeding and interfering with law enforcement officers.

Attorneys for McIver are asking the court to throw out the case, arguing the criminal prosecution is selective and vindictive.

Her legal team argued the Justice Department walked away from prosecutions against Capitol riot defendants who assaulted federal law enforcement officials on Jan. 6, 2021. Yet, the department is still pursuing a case against McIver, they argue.

“They cannot pursue charges against her because she is a Democrat who conducts oversight of Executive Branch immigration policy, while dismissing charges brought under the same statute against those whose views they share and who engaged in conduct far more egregious,” they said in the filing.

They also argue McIver was exercising her constitutional oversight responsibilities when she visited the immigration detention facility.

“Unlike the January 6 rioters, Congresswoman McIver had every right to be on those premises. Indeed, she was there to do her job,” they argued.