Officials in New Jersey said on Monday that several protesters were arrested overnight for defying a curfew at Delaney Hall, the Newark immigration detention center that has seen more than a week of chaotic and often violent clashes.
The state’s Democratic attorney general, Jennifer 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.
On Friday, Davenport and Mikie Sherrill, New Jersey’s Democratic governor, 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.
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.
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.
In a statement on Sunday, Sherrill said violence by the protesters endangered law enforcement and the public.
“I refuse to let these dangerous actions detract from New Jersey’s dedication to ensuring public safety, keeping people safe from ICE, and that the people detained inside Delaney Hall are treated with dignity,” she said.
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.”
Jeffries said the Republican Trump administration would “be held accountable” for what he and his colleagues saw.
“Delaney Hall should be shut down, and every single individual – particularly those at a high level connected to this facility – they’re engaging in a depraved indifference to human life,” he said.
The DHS, in a direct response to Jeffries on Sunday afternoon, said: “This is a detention center – we do not provide luxury accommodations. What we do provide are basic necessities.”
Sherrill, who has been criticized by protesters for her response to the situation, 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.
