hunger strike – Nearly a week after 300 ICE detainees began a hunger and labor strike at Delaney Hall in Newark’s Ironbound section, U.S. lawmakers and New Jersey officials are demanding the facility be shut down. Senators and members of Congress described alleged pepper-spra
For nearly six days, the anger has stayed inside the fences at Delaney Hall—and spilled outward into the streets of Newark’s Ironbound section.
The dispute centers on a private federal immigration detention site that officials say is owned by The GEO Group. Over the Memorial Day holiday period. 300 Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainees launched a hunger and labor strike. and issued a letter describing what they called miserable conditions inside the 1. 000-bed facility.
Lawmakers and advocates say the grievances are not new. For months. they have argued GEO Group has been serving inedible food and failing to provide essential medical care. pointing to the company’s $1 billion contract with the federal government. They also cite a pay arrangement in which detainees receive $1 a day if they help maintain the facility. while GEO Group CEO George Zoley receives $11.2 million in annual compensation.
In the middle of those allegations, families and supporters began reporting a sharp escalation after the strike began. They said visiting hours were canceled and that tensions rose both inside and outside the facility. They also warned that retaliations could fall on detainees who signed letters as part of what multiple advocates described as a growing indictment of a system they say operates outside the bounds of due process.
U.S. Sen. Andy Kim. whose office said it was being swamped by calls from people alleging detainees were being pepper-sprayed and roughed up inside GEO Group’s Delaney Hall. sounded the alarm on Thursday. In a message to the public, Kim said: “If true, these actions must stop immediately. … ICE and GEO have a responsibility to keep detainees safe: they’ve instead refused to let State health officials conduct full inspections and have repeatedly stood in the way of Congressional oversight.”.
Kim added that, “The people inside Delaney Hall deserve their day in court and to be treated humanely, not violently. The time is now to shut this broken facility down.”
Another warning came from Nedia Morsy. the director of Make the Road New Jersey. who told WHYY that the situation inside the facility had become deadly serious. “Right now, there are ICE agents inside of Delaney Hall violently beating the hunger strikers,” Morsy said. “Someone will be killed if no one intervenes and shuts this down. These masked agents are acting as if they’re above the law. This is a modern-day concentration camp, and history will not forgive silence at this moment. We need to shut down Delaney Hall and free everyone inside.”.
On Friday morning, Rep. Analilia Mejia, D-N.J., confirmed that four detainees had been hospitalized after guards used pepper spray and physical force inside Delaney Hall. Mejia said she had been inside the facility.
The federal government disputes the existence of an ongoing hunger strike. Since the start of the detainees’ protest, the Department of Homeland Security has denied there’s an ongoing hunger strike. On reports of force inside Delaney, DHS said staff “used the minimum amount of force to safely deescalate the situation. Following the incident, all affected detainees were promptly evaluated by on-site medical personnel and were cleared with no serious injuries.”.
At the White House, President Donald Trump rejected the protestors’ claims, calling them “fake” and saying they were being paid. DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullins then escalated the confrontation on the eve of the World Cup to be hosted in the U.S. warning he could curtail international flights by ending such flights at Newark Liberty International Airport.
Mullins said: “We’re currently drawing up plans to say. ‘Listen. in these sanctuary cities where the radical left Democrats aren’t allowing us to do our job and enforce federal laws. then we shouldn’t be processing flights into their cities either. ’” as he discussed the administration’s broader approach to enforcement.
Kim’s attention to Delaney Hall is rooted in what he says he witnessed inside. Earlier in the week, he had led a fact-finding tour inside the for-profit prison, and he himself was pepper sprayed after he attempted to de-escalate tensions between protestors and federal immigration officers.
Outside, families described a system that they say moves faster than legal protection. Gabriela Soto, 28, told WBAI that her husband Martin was abducted by ICE in February. Soto said she and her two children are American citizens, but that she was told it didn’t matter. She said her husband was out getting diapers when he was taken because of a language barrier. “My husband was out getting diapers and he was just taken because of a language barrier,” Soto said. “The judge didn’t think that was good enough to release him and that’s what is wrong with the system. People have legal rights and they are being taken away.”.
Soto said she is expecting her third child. She also said Martin Soto was ultimately transferred to another private prison in nearby Elizabeth, New Jersey.
The crisis at Delaney Hall has drawn comparisons to earlier flashpoints. For months at the facility, a vigil by social justice activists reported an in-custody death in December. Last year. months before the murders of Renee Good and Alex Peretti at the hands of DHS officers. Newark and Delaney Hall had become the center of a local pushback against Trump’s mass deportation strategy.
The community’s conflict with federal enforcement dates back further than the current strike. On May 9, 2025, masked federal immigration officers seized Newark Mayor Ras Baraka off a public street outside Delaney Hall. Several hundred city residents. social justice activists. and dozens of Newark police officers encircled the DHS site where Baraka was being held. Baraka was released after a few hours. Charges against him were ultimately dropped, but charges were brought against Rep. LaMonica McIver, D-N.J., and they allege efforts to shield Baraka from the federal agents. McIver faces 17 years in jail if convicted. The account also says Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman, D-N.J., and Rep. Robert Menendez Jr., D-N.J., tried to shield Baraka from the federal agents.
As the present protest continues, the fight has also taken on a local-government dimension. GEO Group is currently fighting the City of Newark over the municipality’s right to require a certificate of occupancy and regular fire department inspections of the facility. The company has no firefighting capability. and the account says that in the event of a fire. it would be up to Newark to respond.
Several members of Congress, led by Kim, spent time inside the facility and with family members waiting outside for updates. Meanwhile, ICE reported a half-dozen arrests outside the facility after masked agents used force against protestors who said they were blockading the entrances.
New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill said she was turned away when she attempted to visit Delaney Hall. In a statement, Sherrill said: “I’m deeply disturbed by reports of the poor conditions at Delaney Hall. Unsafe, inhumane and unconstitutional living conditions are completely unacceptable. I have long opposed private detention facilities and advocated against them. I will continue to call for the closure of Delaney Hall because of reports like these.”.
The demands for closure come with a history of death and legal mischaracterizations. which advocates say officials have repeatedly refused to address. Back in December, 41-year-old Jean Wilson Brutus, who was originally from Haiti, died the first day he was in custody. A press release confirming his death denigrated him as a “criminal illegal alien,” which his family denies. The account says his family disputes the characterization and says he underwent a rigorous four month vetting process in order to enter the U.S. according to reporting in the New Jersey Monitor.
The Trump administration has been accused of regularly labeling people seized from the streets or from the DOJ’s immigration courts as criminals despite reporting that over 70 percent have no criminal record. The account also points to legal trouble involving use of force. Earlier this month. Minnesota prosecutors charged an ICE agent for a January shooting of a Venezuelan immigrant in the leg and then lying about the basic facts in the case. At the time, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said it was “a defensive shot to defend” the officer’s life.
A separate court ruling cited the administration’s decisions in another detention case. Last week, a federal judge threw out the federal criminal case brought against Kilmar Brego Garcia. The Trump administration had originally sent Garcia to a notorious prison in El Salvador. Judge Waverly Crenshaw said the case was a “vindictive and selective prosecution in violation of the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause. ” according to the account.
The death toll is part of the political pressure now bearing down on federal agencies. The account says that so far this year, 18 detainees have died in ICE or private custody across the country. It says that last year, 32 people died in ICE custody, the most since 2004. It also says others have been shot or killed and died in the process of fleeing DHS agents.
And the scale of detention has surged. The account says that at the start of Trump’s second term there were roughly 40,000 people in ICE custody, and that in just one year that number was a record 73,000 at the start of this year.
Inside Delaney Hall, detainees have framed their fight in legal terms. The first letter demanding justice says that “Many hearings are canceled. leaving detainees waiting months for a court date. ” and it says prosecutors file motions to send individuals to Latin American countries such as Ecuador. Guatemala. Honduras. and even Uganda in Africa. It says the detainees argue those countries have “equal or worse conditions of violence.”.
Whether the strike ends in negotiations or intensifies into a deeper confrontation with federal enforcement remains unclear. As of this writing. the striking detainees appear to be holding their resolve—while lawmakers and families say the stakes are immediate. including what happens to people who say they are trying to force a system to look at them as humans.
Delaney Hall Newark ICE detainees GEO Group hunger strike Markwayne Mullins Andy Kim Analilia Mejia immigration detention pepper spray George Zoley World Cup flights