New Jersey officials move to calm Delaney Hall protest clashes

Calls for calm in New Jersey collided with a far harsher scene outside Delaney Hall, where anti-ICE protesters and pro-ICE counterdemonstrators faced off as state police moved to contain the crowd and Newark imposed a sweeping curfew. Gov. Mikie Sherrill said the New Jersey State Police Public Safety Response Team had secured the area outside the 1,000-bed immigration detention center the previous night, but the tension on the ground showed that official reassurances had not yet restored order.

Newark Mayor Ras Baraka responded with a mandatory curfew for a half-mile around Delaney Hall, effective immediately and beginning at midnight. The order closed Doremus Avenue to pedestrian traffic and limited vehicle access to people with verified official business. City officials said multiple people had already been arrested and found with weapons, underscoring how quickly the protest had shifted from demonstration to public-safety operation.

Sherrill said the increased ICE presence outside Delaney Hall threatened public safety and said New Jersey would continue protecting the right to peaceful protest while avoiding escalation. She also blamed out-of-state agitators for heightening the confrontation, a sign that state leaders were trying to separate legitimate protest from outside provocation. State police established designated protest zones as the crowds grew, an operational move meant to channel demonstrations away from the facility and reduce the chance of direct contact with police.

The conflict at Delaney Hall was not a sudden flashpoint. ICE announced in February 2025 that the facility would reopen as a federal immigration processing and detention center after reaching an agreement with the owner, GEO Group. The building had opened in 2000, closed in 2017 and reopened on May 1, 2025, triggering months of protests, legal challenges and complaints about conditions inside the Newark Bay facility.

Those complaints sharpened this week. WHYY reported that Sherrill had been denied entry to the facility earlier in the week and that health inspectors were not allowed to conduct a full inspection, adding to criticism over the center’s operations. Reporting also said detainees inside Delaney Hall had staged a hunger strike, deepening concern over what was happening behind the fences even as officials tried to contain unrest outside.

The episode left New Jersey’s leaders trying to project control while reacting to a fast-moving confrontation in one of the state’s most politically charged sites. The gap between public calls for calm and the need for curfews, protest zones and armed police response showed how fragile order can become when immigration politics, local distrust and crowd pressure converge in one place.