NEWARK, N.J. — Hang around outside the largest immigration jail on the East Coast long enough, and you will hear a volunteer ring a bell.
“Seven!” one volunteer yelled recently. “Seven of them!”
Guards employed by GEO Group, the corporation that runs Delaney Hall on behalf of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, pushed the chain-link gate aside to reveal seven men who were being released from the facility. The industrial haze of petroleum storage tanks and waste processing plants hung low in the air. Trucks whizzed by. But the men dropped to their knees and kissed the ground, then raised both arms to the sky and wept.
Volunteers brought them water bottles and pointed them to a shaded place to rest, grinning next to the released men in video calls to their family members and, eventually, arranging rides away from the jail.
Anchored by a mutual aid tent dubbed the “Radical Hospitality Zone,” a motley crew of religious groups, immigrant rights organizations and anti-fascist activists has, for over a year, tended to the families ripped from normal life by America’s immigration enforcement system. They offer food and water near the outdoor waiting area for visitors, toys to keep children entertained, prayer services, guidance on Delaney Hall’s byzantine visitation system, and even clothing that complies with the jail’s strict dress code.
Their goal: “Free them all,” and care for everyone they can.
But things changed a couple of months ago, when detainees in Delaney Hall took charge, launching a hunger and labor strike to demand freedom and justice, drawing protesters to Newark’s remote industrial corridor. Steps away from the mutual aid effort, crowds have gathered for weeks, heckling the GEO Group staffers and ICE officers behind the facility’s gates, occasionally attempting to block their cars, and clashing with law enforcement operations from three different jurisdictions.
“I’ve been here when people have been released, and then, two days later, they’re back in line, visiting their friend,” said Sister Susan Francois of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace, one of several organizations behind the mutual aid effort known as Eyes on ICE New Jersey.
“There’s the power of community, which is what made the strike possible at all.”
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The vast majority of people held at Delaney Hall have no criminal record, and even ICE considers most not to present any security threat. Paredes said that many people in the jail were arrested while attending immigration appointments that are required for people who want to stay in the U.S.
“I don’t understand it,” he said. “If we are doing things right and showing up for our appointments, why do they arrest us? If we’re doing the right thing, why don’t they go after the actual criminals and bad people instead?”
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Earlier this year, handwritten letters signed by dozens — or in one case, hundreds — of detainees went public. Their allegations were detailed and numerous: decaying food riddled with worms, horrid conditions in bathrooms, medical neglect and sexual abuse. GEO Group did not respond to HuffPost’s request for comment.
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On May 22, people detained in the facility launched a hunger and labor strike. They demanded freedom — first for the elderly, young and medically vulnerable, but ultimately for everyone — a visit with the governor, an end to the coercion to “self-deport,” and due process in their immigration cases.
“We appreciate the support of everyone who is protesting outside the facility,” read one unsigned dispatch from “the detainees at the Delaney Hall Detention Facility” during the strike. “We want you to know that you give us the strength and determination to keep going. Please, DON’T GIVE UP!”
Guards released chemical munitions on detainees who protested an attempt to transfer one detained man who’d served as a translator for others.
“Honey, they’re hitting us!” one man told his wife over the phone, she recounted.
Guards “swept through multiple units, physically assaulted people, and deployed tear gas,” the American Friends Services Committee, whose lawyers represent clients in Delaney Hall, later reported. “People in those units told AFSC that they struggled to breathe for hours after.” The Department of Homeland Security said at the time that “staff used the minimum amount of force to safely deescalate the situation” in response to “a physical fight involving detainees at Delaney Hall” on May 28.
Outside, Sen. Andy Kim (D-N.J.) was among those hit with pepper spray, as ICE officers responded aggressively to a growing protest. New Jersey State Police in riot gear briefly took over external security, at one point kettling and arresting dozens of protesters. Chemical munitions blanketed yards of supplies in the mutual aid tent, rendering it useless. Police checkpoints forced the volunteer effort hundreds of feet away. Amid the chaos, federal agents were spotted rummaging through the mutual aid tent; volunteers returned to find it ransacked.
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Still, the letters – which organizers translated and published online – and the response to them showed the strength of the network that had grown to support Delaney Hall detainees and their families.
The strike and corresponding protest also secured tangible wins: Certain detainees who were pregnant, medically vulnerable and young have been released. The state of New Jersey filed suit against GEO Group for allegedly impeding its health inspectors, and Gov. Mikie Sherrill (D) more than doubled a state fund to provide legal defense for immigrants facing deportation.
Eventually, state and local law enforcement largely withdrew from the area, and the mutual aid effort returned to its spot steps away from Delaney Hall’s entrance.
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ICE and GEO Group went to work trying to break the strike, observers said, cracking down on visitation and transferring large numbers of people to other facilities — practices that continue today, even though the strike effectively ended in late June.****
By some counts, hundreds of people have been moved, sometimes states away: In April, ICE figures put the Delaney Hall population at around 850. That number had dropped to 591 by early June, The New York Times reported. (Volunteers say they believe the population subsequently dropped even lower, based on conversations they had with detainees and their family members.) The jail has since been repopulated by new detainees, and Rep. Rob Menendez (D-N.J.) said after a visit on July 9 that the population was about 800.
Detainees are also being shuffled between Delaney Hall units “on an almost weekly basis,” Menendez said, adding that he believed it was an effort to prevent further collective action.
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Visitation rules have also changed. Visitors had previously been able to show up largely unannounced and still get inside, but there are now limited visitation windows for specific units — which has gotten increasingly complicated as detainees are moved within the facility. GEO Group also began requiring detainees to pre-approve their visitors, but multiple people told HuffPost they’d been turned away by guards despite having been told by their loved ones inside that they were on the list.
“They’re coming up with these inconsistent, arbitrary rules,” said Kara Morillo of Eyes on ICE. “They’re pretty much giving you a five-day waiting period to visit. What we’ve seen is that they can transfer you in that time.”