Protests at Newark ICE detention center escalate as officials impose curfew

Outside Delaney Hall, Newark authorities had already imposed a nightly curfew and pushed demonstrators a half-mile back, but the deeper conflict was inside the 1,200-bed private ICE jail, where detainees and advocates had been pressing for months to close the facility over poor conditions. Three people were arrested Saturday night after authorities said masked individuals moved aggressively toward police, turning the protests into a broader test of how little public scrutiny reaches a privatized detention center.

Delaney Hall is the largest of New Jersey’s two privately run ICE detention centers, and the unrest came as the state sought direct access to the building. New Jersey filed a lawsuit on June 2 seeking to give the Department of Health full access after inspectors were allegedly blocked from fully entering the facility, a move state officials said was needed to assess complaints about inhumane and unsanitary conditions. Newark also restricted access to the road leading to the site as state police set up a perimeter around the protest zone.

Inside the facility, the complaints have gone far beyond the street scene outside. Members of Congress who visited Delaney Hall said detained women reported trouble getting medical care and being separated from family. Other reports said detainees described small food portions that very often contained maggots, and some detainees began a hunger and labor strike around May 22. Kathy O’Leary of Pax Christi and other immigrant advocates said the allegations reflected broader repression and abuses, not isolated lapses.

GEO Group, which runs Delaney Hall, said the facility met federal standards, while the Department of Homeland Security denied claims that detainees were being mistreated. New Jersey leaders said they wanted better conditions and ultimately wanted the facility shut down. Gov. Mikie Sherrill called the clashes a “black mark” because they distracted from the people inside and their families.

The fight over Delaney Hall echoed a wider pattern in immigrant detention across the country, especially in Louisiana, one of the nation’s largest detention hubs after Texas. At Winn Correctional Center in Winnfield, Louisiana, ICE said Mamuka Artmeladze, a 43-year-old from Georgia, was found unresponsive on June 4 and later pronounced dead, the second detainee death there in less than two months. A Department of Homeland Security watchdog report found insanitary conditions, medical-care problems and excessive force there, while a 2024 coalition report on nine Louisiana detention facilities documented physical and sexual abuse, denial of prescribed medication, cockroach-infested food, prolonged solitary confinement and a lack of feminine hygiene products. Together, the cases underscored a national system where private detention often operates with limited visibility and repeated allegations of harm.