Hundreds of detainees at Delaney Hall in Newark, New Jersey launched hunger and labor strikes over Memorial Day weekend, alleging spoiled food, lack of medications and medical care, and violence from guards. Outside the facility, protesters converged in solida
For nights around Delaney Hall in Newark. New Jersey. protesters stood at one of the facility’s entrances—faces visible. signs in hand—watching ICE agents in masks push toward the flow of traffic. The clashes followed a grim rhythm: a car tried to enter or leave. the agents moved to clear a path. and the confrontation would flare. Afterward, the scene would return to tense stillness.
The protests began around May 28. in solidarity with detainees inside the immigration detention facility who were withholding labor and staging hunger strikes to protest conditions detainees say have become unbearable. Those complaints included inadequate medical care. detainees saying they were not receiving needed medications. shortages of food. and accounts that the food provided was spoiled. There were also claims of hostility and harassment and violence from guards.
Andrea Sáenz. described in the reporting as a former federal appellate immigration judge who was fired by the Trump administration last year. said detainees raised that they “have no access to quality medical care. ” that they were “not getting needed medications. ” that they “don’t have enough food to eat. ” and that the food they were getting was spoiled. She also said detainees reported hostility and harassment and violence from guards.
On the outside, the confrontation intensified after state and local police arrived to secure the area. During the night of Friday. May 29. and continuing into Saturday. May 30. police deployed riot shields and gas masks and fired tear gas. Injuries followed. including a “freelance photographer for The Associated Press” who suffered a severe injury to a leg. according to the account described.
The reporting also portrayed Mayor Ras Baraka’s curfew as a flashpoint. Baraka declared a curfew. and the account notes that it was “ironic” because Baraka had previously been arrested while protesting conditions at ICE and had taken the stance that what was happening at Delaney Hall was unacceptable but that protesters needed to be peaceful. On Sunday night. the curfew was imposed for 9 p.m. and police set up what was described as a frozen zone on the industrial corridor where the facility sits. with checkpoints about a half mile in either direction to prevent protesters from getting in front of the detention facility.
After 9 p.m. on Sunday, protesters were “kettled,” surrounded and prevented from leaving by police after being told they were violating the curfew. Media. the reporting said. was largely allowed to leave if they could show credentials. but a handful of citizen journalists were arrested. Dozens of protesters and a handful of reporters were held in jail until they were released on Monday afternoon.
By the time a reporter arrived late Monday afternoon. people were just starting to be released and the scene was described as comparatively calm. The police had set up “free-speech zones” farther away. with several dozen protesters signs and megaphones. and many dozens of police and a lot of media nearby. Around 9 p.m. most protesters left. except for a handful who played a brief “cat and mouse” game with police. backing away toward the designated zone roughly 500 yards away.
The account also described disagreements over who was most responsible for the violence. It said ICE agents on the scene were willing at times to use violence against protesters to maintain the entrance. but that Newark and New Jersey police were more indiscriminate. more willing to attack directly. and more willing to fire tear gas.
Inside the wider immigration debate. the strikes at Delaney Hall have become a lens for an argument about accountability and oversight. Sáenz called Delaney a “microcosm” of what she described as harsh and inhumane ICE detention conditions across the country. pointing to detainees’ reports of lack of quality medical care and needed medications. lack of enough food and spoiled food. and guard hostility and violence.
In the same conversation. Aaron Reichlin-Melnick. described as a senior policy fellow at the American Immigration Council. tied the Delaney episode to broader national changes. He said the Trump administration had restricted members of Congress and state officials from oversight of federal immigration detention centers. and he argued that ICE does not want people to see how it is treating people in these facilities. Reichlin-Melnick also said the administration’s approach should concern everyone. saying that every government database was being turned into a tool of a mass deportation state and that mass deportation on the scale of 4 percent of the U.S. population would fundamentally transform the country into more of a police state.
Sáenz and Reichlin-Melnick also pointed to funding and expansion plans. Reichlin-Melnick described a report earlier this year saying the administration’s detention expansion efforts were on track to rival the entire federal criminal prison system by the end of President Trump’s second term. That section of the report. as quoted in the transcript. said the expansion was fueled by an unprecedented increase in funding provided by Congress in President Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill Act. ” and that ICE’s annual appropriations brought ICE’s budget “nearly $15 billion per year” to use on immigration detention through the end of fiscal year 2029.
He also said the detention system expanded by 75 percent after Trump took office, rising from about 40,000 people in detention in 2025 to over 73,000 people in detention in January 2026. Reichlin-Melnick said the number had fallen somewhat in the months after “Operation Metro Surge” in Minneapolis.
Sáenz focused on the idea of converting warehouses into detention centers and the consequences for basic safety and care. She said the government spent money to buy large facilities without plans for how to keep human beings there “humanely. ” adding that she believed there were no plans for handling water and trash. and that this had been the source of lawsuits. She described Delaney as the largest facility on the East Coast. saying it can hold up to 1. 000 people. and said she believed the government lacked the infrastructure. accountability. and oversight to care for people as deaths in ICE detention rose—stating “18 deaths just in this calendar year. ” which she called unprecedented.
Oversight and transparency were central to her account. She said even attorneys were finding it difficult to reach clients because detainees were being transferred from state to state and could disappear off the public detainee locator. She said ICE was not responsive, and that immigration court hearings increasingly kept observers and press from watching. She also said elected officials and state health officials had been denied access to inspect facilities. connecting that to the escalation as officials sought to exercise their right to oversight.
When asked whether conditions were deteriorating or simply receiving more attention. Reichlin-Melnick said it was “a little bit of both.” He said some problems—spoiled food and inadequate medical care—were not new and pointed to DHS Office of Inspector General reports going back years. In one example he described. inspectors went to Essex County Jail in 2018 and found spoiled food covered in mold in a fridge that was being served to people. What he said was new was the speed of expansion and the increasing difficulty of getting out of detention. which he linked to a legal position that any person who had entered the United States across the southern border is permanently barred from seeking release on bond.
Sáenz said she thought conditions were deteriorating and connected the worsening to increased enforcement and severe overcrowding. She also described other facilities where people held after arrest were. in her telling. packed in and judges ordered people could not be held overnight. She said enforcement had become “indiscriminate. ” and she described ICE arresting very young people. very sick people. and elderly parents of people detained.
The conversation also widened to other immigration policy changes, including a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services memo described as changing how adjustment of status—applying for a green card from inside the United States—would be treated. In the transcript. Reichlin-Melnick said the memo indicated adjustment of status would be treated as an extraordinary benefit and only granted as administrative grace. He said the administration initially suggested it could lead to as many as half a million people a year having to leave the United States and pursue immigrant visas abroad. and described backlash that led the administration to walk the position back somewhat. narrowing the potential impact to tens of thousands of people. possibly those who overstayed visas years ago and sought a green card through a spouse.
Sáenz said the broader picture was one of contempt and dismissiveness toward people with legal status. adding that the administration was detaining and putting into proceedings not just people alleged to be out of status but also Dreamers with DACA. young people with special immigrant juvenile status. and people with visas as victims of violent crimes or trafficking.
She also described changes to the immigration court system that she said affected independence. stating that trial-level immigration judges and the remaining Biden appointees on the Board of Immigration Appeals were fired starting last year. and describing that judges were no longer independent but watched by leadership.
In the end. the story of Delaney Hall is both immediate and ongoing: detainees inside launched hunger and labor strikes to protest medical care. medications. food shortages and spoiled food. and violence from guards. while protesters outside faced tear gas. beatings. and arrests amid a curfew and checkpoints imposed by local officials.
The reporting also left the sense that the confrontation outside the facility is inseparable from what happened inside it—because when thousands of decisions about detention. oversight. and access to care are made far from public view. the only thing that breaks through can be a hunger strike. and then the sirens outside.
Delaney Hall Newark immigration detention hunger strike labor strike GEO Group ICE curfew tear gas police kettling Andrea Sáenz Aaron Reichlin-Melnick