Protesters clash with agents outside New Jersey ICE facility. Inside, detainees continue their hunger strike, attorneys say
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By Chris Boyette, Sarah Dewberry, Taylor Romine, CNN
(CNN) — Anger building over conditions at Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention centers is focused again Tuesday on a facility in Newark, New Jersey, where protesters are still gathered a day after their charged demonstration turned chaotic.
Protesters at Delaney Hall – a privately owned, 1,000-bed facility where inhumane conditions have been alleged for months – blocked unmarked government vehicles and tussled with armed, masked ICE agents, including some who used gas canisters and batons, video from Freedom News TV obtained by CNN shows.
Tensions escalated over the holiday weekend as hundreds of detainees went on a labor and hunger strike, their lawyers said. Frustration then boiled over at plans to move Martin Alonso Soto Hernandez, a detainee whose wife is pregnant and who has sought release on bond, his attorney said.
The Department of Homeland Security denied elected officials’ claims of unacceptable conditions at Delaney Hall, saying they were “spreading smears about ICE law enforcement” and the facility. Amid the Trump administration’s nationwide, second-term deportation push, nearly 50 ICE detainees have died, the most in at least two decades, CNN has found.
Newark’s mayor said Tuesday he plans to ask the New Jersey governor “to empower the Attorney General to immediately investigate Delaney Hall.”
Here is what we know about the New Jersey facility and why it’s at the center of another wave of protests.
Inhumane conditions lead to hunger strike, lawyers say
Before protesters and federal agents clashed, Delaney Hall detainees went on a peaceful hunger and labor strike Friday to protest spoiled food, among other problems, some of their attorneys said. Roughly 300 detainees participated, NJ.com reported.
“The conditions are brutal,” said Selenia Destefani, a managing attorney and CEO of Nova Law Group, which represents people in the facility. “People just sleep on the floor – overcrowded rooms, cold showers, no food, extremely cold in the cells with no blankets. Not sound conditions to live in.”
Detainees with medical conditions like cancer and diabetes can’t access medical care, said Alex Minogue, another attorney at Nova Law Group.
“All detainees are provided with 3 meals a day, clean water, clothing, bedding, showers, soap, and toiletries,” a DHS spokesperson told CNN.
“Illegal aliens also have access to phones to communicate with their family members and lawyers,” an agency news release said. “Certified dieticians evaluate meals. In fact, ICE has higher detention standards than most US prisons that hold actual US citizens.”
DHS also “provide(s) comprehensive medical care from the moment an alien enters ICE custody,” and “this includes medical, dental, and mental health services as available, and access to medical appointments and 24-hour emergency care,” the agency said, without responding to specific claims.
Soto Hernandez, meanwhile, has been served spoiled food with worms in it, Destefani said. DHS didn’t respond directly to that accusation.
Sen. Andy Kim of New Jersey visited Delaney Hall on Saturday after hearing about the hunger strike. The Democrat saw “a carton with the milk inside congealed solid” and spoke with people who said they were arrested at scheduled immigration interviews for green cards, he wrote on X.
During his recent visits, Kim has spoken to more than 100 detainees, including some who said they’ve been there for a year with no idea of when they will be released, he told CNN.
Kim has seen about 12 to 16 people per room during his visits, although the number of people per room can depend on its size, he said. The bathrooms are “filthy,” and it’s difficult to get hot water, he added.
DHS denied the claims made by Kim and other politicians.
“This is nothing more than a political stunt by New Jersey sanctuary politicians for fundraising clicks,” acting Assistant Secretary Lauren Bis said in a statement. “There is NO hunger strike at Delaney Hall. There are NO subprime conditions or abuse at the facility.”
Responding to Bis’ statement, Kim said, “If those are the conditions that they think are satisfactory for people, then shame on them.”
In response to criticisms about conditions at Delaney Hall, the operator of the facility, GEO Group, issued a statement saying, “In all instances, our support services are monitored by ICE” and other DHS personnel “to ensure compliance with ICE’s detention standards and contract requirements regarding the treatment and services ICE detainees receive.”
Protesters and DHS agents clash outside detention center
Tension outside Delaney Hall quickly ramped up Sunday night into early Monday as protesters tried to stop the transfer of Soto Hernandez to another facility, DHS said. His wife had organized a rally Friday announcing the hunger strike, NJ.com reported.
Law enforcement officers in masks and vests marked with ICE patches pulled protesters out of a crowd and detained them, with at least one dragged across the ground, video from Freedom News TV shows. It is not immediately clear what led to the encounter.
Federal agents threw an unknown type of gas canister and told protesters to get back.
Some 125 people “surrounded” Delaney Hall, a DHS spokesperson told CNN. They formed “a human chain around entrances to the facility and set up barricades, blocking all entries and exits,” the agency said.
About two dozen protesters voluntarily broke their chain Monday night as an ICE vehicle approached an exit, Freedom News TV video shows.
Kim was caught in a cloud of a chemical irritant Monday and had “a burning sensation in my eyes and my throat,” he told CNN. Someone at the scene poured water in the senator’s eyes, video from CNN affiliate News 12 New Jersey shows. Kim is feeling physically better, he told CNN Tuesday, but said he is “really worried about what’s going to come next” when it comes to the conditions at Delaney Hall.
“No individuals were directly struck by pepper ball projectiles,” DHS said late Monday in a statement, adding “rioters obstructed law enforcement from exiting the ICE facility,” prompting officers to issue several verbal commands followed by a “minimum amount” of force.
Soto Hernandez, whom ICE detained January 20 as he bought diapers, previously had been arrested during an alleged domestic violence incident with his wife; the charges were dismissed and expunged, his attorneys said.
After his transfer to Elizabeth Detention Center, Soto Hernandez was put in isolation and denied phone calls, said his attorneys, who got to see him there. “He was telling us how he now weighs like 110 pounds,” said Minogue. “Like, he’s skin and bones. I could blow him away.”
Soto Hernandez’s wife, Gabriela, who is four months pregnant, has had a difficult time during his ICE detainment, Minogue said. The couple has two other children, one of whom requires medical care they have put off because it is too difficult to manage with only one parent, she said.
Lawmakers try to visit ICE facility
New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill and other Democrats tried to see conditions at Delaney Hall for themselves, but they were not allowed inside the detention center Sunday and Monday, they said.
“Visitation has been suspended out of an abundance of caution” following the clashes, a spokesperson for DHS told CNN on Monday.
The governor, who previously said she was “disturbed” by reports of poor conditions at Delaney Hall, vowed to keep advocating for its closure.
“I have never thought Delaney Hall should open. We had a law here in New Jersey against privately-run detention facilities,” Sherrill said at a news conference Tuesday. “I think from the lack of accountability, we’re seeing exactly why they are a bad idea.”
“The fact that they wouldn’t let me in there gives you some sense that there is some ‘there’ there, and that’s really concerning to me,” the governor added.
Concern about conditions at Delaney Hall under GEO Group management dates to around 2023, when the firm sought a contract to reopen it. US Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey encouraged the Biden administration not to use the facility, calling the private contract “an insult to immigrant communities and advocates in New Jersey and around the country who have fought tirelessly to document the human rights abuses at private detention centers.”
Newark Mayor Ras Baraka called on the governor to have the attorney general investigate Delaney Hall as he criticized the conditions at the facility, saying Tuesday the city has been engaging in litigation with GEO Group over the past year for “failure to comply with municipal ordinances.” Attorney General Jennifer Davenport said she is “deeply troubled by reports of unsafe conditions” at the facility, and her office will continue to work with the governor to “ensure that everyone in our state is treated with the basic dignity the law requires.” CNN has reached out to the governor for comment.
A GEO Group spokesperson said ICE and other DHS agencies monitor its support services.
“In the event issues are identified, we quickly resolve all of ICE’s concerns as required by ICE’s Quality Assurance Surveillance Plan,” the statement said. It also listed the services it provides, including “around-the-clock access to medical care, in-person and virtual legal and family visitation,” as well as dietician-approved meals, among other services.
Booker denounced current conditions in a social media post Monday, saying, “Immigrants at Delaney Hall are on a hunger strike because they are fighting for their human rights” as conditions are “deplorable.”
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CNN’s Andy Rose and Gloria Pazmino contributed to this report.
