On Monday afternoon, over an hour south of Newark, a few dozen protesters outside the New Jersey state legislature in Trenton condemned Democratic governor Mikie Sherrill’s decision to send in the state police to Delaney Hall, the Newark immigration detention center that has seen more than a week of chaotic and often violent clashes.
Across the street, two people silently held a giant “NO CONCENTRATION CAMPS” sign. Members of local chapters from Indivisible, a national movement behind the No Kings protests, held handmade posters reading “Gov Sherrill, stop lying about Delaney Hall” and “NJ Staties were the aggressors” – a reference to Sherrill and state attorney general Jennifer Davenport’s calling the anti-ICE protesters “violent”.
On Friday Sherrill had announced that state law enforcement would be taking over policing duties outside the detention center from federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers to try to lower tensions after eight days of confrontations with supporters of immigrants being held inside. But the situation remains tense, with more attendees visiting the Delaney Hall protests in recent days, either to support detainees being released or stand with other protesters facing law enforcement.
Officials in New Jersey said earlier that several protesters were arrested overnight for defying a curfew at Delaney Hall.Davenport posted on X that a group of individuals “had come to the protest armed with helmets, shields, or gas masks, [and] deliberately refused to comply with repeated orders to leave the area”, resulting in their arrest.
The New York Post, which had journalists at the scene, reported the number of arrests was at least between 20 and 25 – and published photographs of several people being led away in cuffs by state police. A social media post from advocacy groups, including the Immigration Coalition, late on Sunday said there were “over 46 Delaney Hall protesters … arrested”.
CBS News reported that state officers in riot gear, and others on horseback, rushed the crowd less than 15 minutes after issuing a dispersal order to people gathered outside a half-mile exclusion zone around the facility, some of the scenes captured on a video posted to YouTube by bystanders.
At the state legislature protest, Diane Herbert Cooper, a member of an Indivisible chapter in nearby Camden county, grew emotional on the mic addressing the crowd, recounting what she had witnessed. “Sherill made it worse,” Cooper continued. “That is 100% true — the state police did not make it any better, they made it worse.”
“Mikie, focus on the detainees,” pleaded Eileen Bird with Resistencia en Accion New Jersey, one of the groups making up the state’s Eyes on ICE Coalition. “They have rotten food, they have no medical care, they need more legal support and they need freedom.”
Delaney Hall detainees have been engaged in hunger and labor strikes against conditions at the center, and the temporary suspension by government officials of visitation rights for their families.
Multiple attendees, including Cooper, said they had been a part of getting Sherrill elected, or had voted for her, on the assumption that she would stand up against violent ICE operations, something that she flagged early in her tenure. Not yet five months into her tenure as governor, protesters were discussing how to recall her.
Neal McGrath of Hopewell, New Jersey, was at Delaney on Sunday, but left before the violence began. He said he went to support the people detained within the ICE facility, but due to the “free speech zone” the governor enacted on Friday keeping protesters away from the entrance to the facility, that wasn’t possible.
“Sherrill’s state police made sure we were so far away that [the detainees] had no idea we were out there, so it was meaningless,” said McGrath. “They weren’t just depriving our civil rights to protest, but they were taking [our presence] away from the kidnapped victims that are being held in that so-called detention center.”
Other public officials, however, raised concern along Sherrill and Davenport.
Newark’s mayor, Ras Baraka, said in a social media post on Sunday that he was mandating an immediate 9pm to 6am curfew “due to the escalating situation at Delaney Hall and the increasing need for police intervention … to protect public safety”. Multiple individuals, he said, were arrested on Saturday night in possession of weapons.
Meanwhile, the X account of the US homeland security department (DHS) posted a video on Sunday night of an apparently unarmed protester sitting on a curb who was dragged at gunpoint behind a line of officers in riot gear and shields. “Don’t be this guy,” the caption said.
A succession of similar, previous DHS posts through Sunday carried messages including, “law and order”, “ZERO tolerance for rioters”, and “if you riot, you will face the consequences”.
The DHS has claimed allegations of mistreatment or denial of medical care for detained immigrants – and complaints of meager or inedible food portions sometimes containing maggots – are “a hoax” promoted by certain politicians.
“No lawbreakers in the history of human civilization have been better treated than illegal aliens,” the post said.
“ALL detainees receive FULL due process and are provided comprehensive medical care and 3 meals a day. Our menu at Delaney Hall even includes a WIDE range of meals like fajitas, burritos, jambalaya, fruit, vegetables, salads, brownies, and cake.”
The government’s assertions are starkly at odds with testimony from Democratic politicians about what they saw inside the ICE facility, which is operated by the Geo Group, one of the biggest private prison companies in the US, and which has an average daily population of between 800 and 900.
“We spoke to several individuals, none of whom has a criminal record, many of whom have been detained here at Delaney Hall for months,” the top US House Democrat, Hakeem Jeffries, told reporters after a congressional oversight visit on Sunday with party congressional colleagues Josh Gottheimer, Rob Menendez Jr and LaMonica McIver.
“The lack of access to quality food, that’s not America. The lack of access to adequate medical treatment, that’s not America. The retaliation that’s taking place, that’s not America.
“The fact there are 18-year-old high school girls being held here is not America.”
Sherrill confirmed on Sunday that family visitation at Delaney Hall had been restored to at least part of the site, and would resume fully on Monday after it was suspended by the DHS citing the violence in the facility’s proximity.
Photojournalist Adriano Kalin, who traveled from Chicago to New Jersey to document the action at Delaney Hall, was on the ground over the weekend at the protests – as he has been at multiple other anti-ICE protests across the country.
As a journalist and an immigrant, Kalin said, he believes it’s important for him to bear witness to what’s happening. “The press have been in harm’s way [at other anti-ICE protests], but we’ve never been targeted,” he said. “This is the first time that I’ve seen state or local [police] charge and attack press directly.”
Kalin posted on Instagram footage of a flash bang thrown directly at his feet as he recorded the state police pressing into the crowd in riot gear. “America has always been this volatile, especially for marginalized communities, but what is making people very uncomfortable is that everyone has their iPhone with them,” he said. “I mean, 4K footage is very hard to dispute.”
