Protests erupt at Newark ICE jail amid hunger strike claims

Pepper spray and chants outside Delaney Hall turned Newark’s privately run ICE jail into a flashpoint on Monday, after advocates said about 300 detainees inside had launched a hunger and labor strike over spoiled food and medical neglect. Outside the 1,000-bed facility, protesters blocked unmarked government vehicles as the confrontation escalated, and Sen. Andy Kim said he was hit with pepper spray while trying to calm the scene.

Delaney Hall reopened after ICE announced on February 26, 2025 that the Newark facility would return to service as a detention center. GEO Group, which operates the jail, said the contract runs 15 years and is worth about $1 billion, placing one of the country’s most visible immigration lockups in a city already fighting over whether it should be there at all.

Newark officials say they have spent about a year in court with GEO Group over the facility’s compliance with municipal ordinances. Mayor Ras Baraka said city Health Department, Fire Division and Code Enforcement staff have repeatedly been denied access to inspect Delaney Hall, even as the city has pressed for oversight of a facility holding people in federal custody. Newark is now asking the governor to empower the state attorney general to immediately investigate the jail and to order a full, independent Department of Health inspection.

Baraka’s statement on May 26 said detainees reported a wall collapse that created a security breach, a death in custody, an ongoing hunger strike, flu outbreaks and denial of medical treatment for serious conditions including HIV, cancer, diabetes and heart disease. Attorneys said the hunger and labor strike began Friday, May 22, over spoiled food and other conditions, and Kim said detainees showed him spoiled milk when he visited the protest area.

Kim said he met a pregnant woman and a man with stage-three lung cancer who said they were not getting needed care. The Department of Homeland Security denied the allegations, saying detainees receive three meals a day, clean water, clothing, bedding, showers, soap, toiletries and access to medical care, and accusing protesters and elected officials of spreading smears.

The clash in Newark has become more than a local dispute over one building. It now sits at the center of the Trump administration’s deportation push, where detention conditions, due process and local resistance are colliding in real time. CNN reported that nearly 50 ICE detainees have died in custody during the second-term crackdown, the most in at least two decades, making Delaney Hall part of a national test of how far immigration enforcement can go before public pressure forces a response.