(AFP) – New Jersey state authorities announced Friday they were taking charge of security outside a US immigration detention center after clashes between ICE agents and protesters angered by conditions faced by detainees inside. Days of unrest outside the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention center in Newark have led to arrests as a tough stance by US President Donald Trump’s administration on immigration policy continues to draw opposition — including from authorities in Democratic-led states.
At least 17 people have been arrested during scuffles with federal agents over the past three nights, according to Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin. “Approximately 100 anti-ICE rioters gathered around the Delaney Hall ICE facility. Rioters bit, kicked, and punched law enforcement officers,” Mullin wrote on X after clashes on Thursday evening. He complained that state police were not deployed to assist ICE officers. Footage from US media outlets showed scuffles between protesters and law enforcement, who used pepper spray.
On Friday, New Jersey Attorney General Jennifer Davenport told a press conference: “Our state police will be taking public safety operations over from ICE outside Delaney Hall this afternoon.” Democratic state Governor Mikie Sherrill added: “We’ve seen the risk to public safety rising outside of Delaney Hall; it has grown unsafe, and that’s completely unacceptable. We all need to do everything we can to cool things down now. I will not give ICE the pretext to expand operations in our state.”
Delaney Hall is a private, 1,000-bed facility used exclusively by ICE that has operated since 2025 as the Trump administration pressed its campaign to deport millions of illegal immigrants. New Jersey, on the US East Coast, is a so-called “sanctuary state,” voluntarily limiting its cooperation with federal immigration authorities.
The turmoil outside Delaney Hall began after detainees inside launched a hunger and labor strike to protest conditions. A hand-written Spanish-language letter published this week by Cosecha, a group advocating for undocumented immigrants, and signed by 300 detainees, said that they are “detained without justification,” lack proper medical care and get “poor food.”
US Senator Cory Booker, a New Jersey Democrat who visited the facility on Wednesday and said he spoke to dozens of detainees, echoed those concerns. “The majority of the people I spoke with have no criminal history — no charges, no convictions — related to the kind of violence Donald Trump promised Americans he would target,” Booker said in a statement. “Delaney Hall should be closed down,” he added.
Sherrill said she was denied access on Monday. The New Jersey Department of Health was able to inspect the center’s food service facilities on Thursday but was denied full access, the Democratic governor said on X. “Refusing to provide full access raises serious questions about what ICE is trying to hide from public view,” she added.
Mullin responded to her on X, saying ICE detention centers are regularly inspected and audited by “external agencies.” “All detainees are provided with proper meals, quality water, blankets, medical treatment, and have opportunities to communicate with their family members and lawyers,” he said.
On Saturday, a counter-protest is planned, but participants will gather in a different area from the anti-ICE demonstrators, authorities said. New Jersey authorities and the Trump administration are already locked in legal disputes over anti-immigration measures. The US government is attempting to block an attempt by Sherrill to prevent federal agents from operating with their faces concealed in the state. The New Jersey town of Roxbury, meanwhile, is trying to prevent the conversion of a commercial warehouse into a detention center.
© 2024 AFP
