Senator Kim enters Delaney Hall, gets stonewalled

When Senator Andy Kim returned to ICE’s Delaney Hall in Newark on Saturday, he was allowed inside—but not allowed to speak with detainees. He said he saw women in visible medical distress, heard guards refuse to provide answers about restricted video calls and

Saturday morning started the way so many visit days do for families locked out of time: a woman drove nearly two hours to ICE’s Delaney Hall detention center in Newark, New Jersey, hoping to see her husband.

At the gate, she was turned away.

GEO Group—the multibillion-dollar ICE contractor that runs Delaney Hall—had cancelled family visitation for the day. By the time the morning had passed, she was crying on a curb and had driven home. Around her. the scene repeated itself: over the course of the morning. multiple women and children arrived and were told they would not be seeing their loved ones that day.

More than two weeks into a hunger and labor strike inside Delaney Hall—and after allies outside answered with near-daily protests—access to what is happening inside remains tightly controlled. Even journalists often find that visits are rescheduled or canceled, and Congress members have run into walls of their own.

Under federal law, members of Congress can conduct unannounced oversight visits to ICE facilities like Delaney Hall. Yet New Jersey congresswoman LaMonica McIver was arrested last year when she tried to conduct an oversight visit alongside Newark mayor Ras Baraka; McIver is now facing assault charges. New Jersey governor Mikie Sherrill attempted to visit the jail in late May and was denied.

Then, last month, Andy Kim tried to enter Delaney Hall and was pepper-sprayed. He was forced to directly call Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin for admittance, according to reporting by his staff.

On Saturday, Kim returned.

He made it inside.

But the key part of the oversight—speaking to the people held there—did not come. “They refused to let me talk to any detainees,” Kim said as he exited Delaney Hall.

He described what guards told him if he did try to speak to detainees: the tour would be cut off and stopped immediately. Kim said that was a “deep breach of my responsibilities” and that it impedes his ability to do the oversight he is legally allowed to conduct and that the American public is demanding.

Kim said what he could see was alarming.

As he walked past the women’s unit, he described women “frantically” waving their arms and pointing at someone curled up on a bed in pain. He asked what was happening. The guards, Kim said, did not answer.

He said the facility continues to rely on only one full-time doctor for hundreds of detainees, many of whom have significant medical concerns.

At this point, there are about 600 people jailed in Delaney Hall, a thousand-bed facility that has faced accusations of inadequate medical care, wormy food and abusive guards.

Kim also asked about how detainees’ ability to communicate with family is being limited. He said he asked the guards why video calls are being restricted. The response, Kim said, was “We’ll get back to you.”

He asked about specific detained people whose families had asked him for help. Again, he said guards told him, “We’ll get back to you.”

One of those concerns involved a detained woman who has been hospitalized for several weeks. Kim said guards told her family they were not being told where she is or which hospital she’s in. and that officials were treating it as a security problem. Kim said the guards advised the family to file a Freedom of Information Act request to find out where she is.

“What he was told” left Kim furious. “Can you imagine if your loved one was in a hospital and you don’t know what hospital they’re in, and then you’re told to just file some bureaucratic papers, and cross your fingers that they’re going to get back to you?” Kim said.

He added: “That’s the stuff that just pisses me off about this. I was here to get answers for these family members that I talked with earlier today, and I didn’t get them.”

Outside Delaney Hall, a volunteer-run tent has become a kind of lifeline for visitors during the hunger and labor strike. For more than a year. volunteers have operated a “radical hospitality” tent outside the facility—the same tent where medics cared for Kim after he was pepper-sprayed. On most weekends. when hundreds of family members might come to visit. the tent is bustling: volunteers distribute water and grocery gift cards. and children play on a rocking horse inside the tent to get respite from the sun. A volunteer told him that diapers are often the most requested item.

This Saturday, that tent was nearly empty. Visits were cancelled for the day, and many families were turned away at the gate. A few individuals who did stop received bottled water and directions to the nearest bus stop.

Kim stood among them, saying the stakes weren’t abstract. “This is our money going to detain these people, and we’re not getting any answers,” he said. He said he was not getting answers on behalf of the American public, or on behalf of the families of the people detained inside.

He closed by emphasizing what those families are asking for in plain terms: “They deserve to have answers, they deserve to have their rights.”

GEO Group and ICE did not respond to requests for comment.

ICE Delaney Hall Andy Kim GEO Group Newark detention congressional oversight hunger strike labor strike video calls Freedom of Information Act Mikie Sherrill LaMonica McIver Ras Baraka Markwayne Mullin Homeland Security