Attorneys representing detainees inside Delaney Hall in Newark, New Jersey, say their clients have been served maggot-ridden food, denied medical care, and locked into dorms without working air conditioning.
Roughly 300 people inside the privately run ICE facility have been refusing food for more than a week.
The Department of Homeland Security claims no hunger strike is taking place.
New Jersey’s Department of Health tried to confirm conditions for itself — and was denied full access to the building.
By Saturday night, the streets outside Delaney Hall were under curfew.
Newark Mayor Ras Baraka ordered a mandatory 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew across a half-mile radius around the detention center, effective immediately.
Doremus Avenue was closed to pedestrians at midnight. Vehicle access was restricted to anyone with verified official business.
New Jersey Governor Mikie Sherrill sent state police to take over perimeter control from federal agents after a week of escalating clashes — federal officers using pepper spray and batons, demonstrators using trash cans, umbrellas, and linked arms as barricades.
The protests began May 22, after attorneys disclosed the hunger strike. Demonstrators have included clergy, nurses, parents of detainees, and Democratic lawmakers.
Healthcare workers showed up with hand-lettered signs reading “Doctor against deportations” and “Health care worker against deportations.”
One protester, who gave only her first name, Dana, told NBC News, “It’s not okay to treat human beings this way. I don’t care how you feel about immigration, we’re all human beings.”
Officials locked out
Sherrill — a freshman governor inaugurated in January — was denied entry when she tried to inspect the facility.
State health inspectors who followed were allowed into only a small area of the building.
Sherrill responded by publicly calling for the facility’s closure.
“As I’ve said repeatedly,” she wrote, “refusing to provide full access raises serious questions about what ICE is trying to hide from public view.”
DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin, the former Oklahoma Republican senator now running the agency, took a different approach.
He went on Fox & Friends and threatened to pull Customs and Border Protection officers from Newark Liberty International Airport and redirect them to crowd control at Delaney Hall — a move that would gut international passenger processing at one of the country’s busiest airports.
The U.S. Travel Association warned the plan would have “devastating consequences” for travelers and surrounding businesses.
Mullin said he is “drawing up plans.”
What’s actually inside Delaney Hall
Delaney Hall is a 1,000-bed facility owned and operated by GEO Group, a private prison contractor.
It reopened in May 2025 as the largest immigration detention center on the East Coast.
Newark sued GEO Group last April, alleging the company never secured proper city permits before reopening the building for ICE detention. That suit is still pending.
Advocates say the hunger and labor strike began in mid-May after detainees were denied fresh food, medical attention, and functioning air conditioning.
Many of those held inside have not been charged with a crime. Some are awaiting asylum hearings.
Federal officials describe the population as violent offenders; lawyers representing the detainees say that is not the case.
The pattern mirrors what’s been reported at Adelanto in California, where at least 20 detainees have refused food over mold, contaminated drinking water, and lack of medical care.
Advocacy groups count 51 deaths in ICE custody since January 2025, including 18 this year alone.
A facility with a history of confrontation
This is not the first time Delaney Hall made national news.
In May 2025, Newark Mayor Baraka was arrested outside the gates while attempting an oversight visit.
Federal prosecutors charged him with trespassing. The charges were later dropped.
During that same incident, U.S. Rep. LaMonica McIver was charged with assaulting officers when she attempted to intervene.
McIver has denounced the charges and is fighting them in court.
Last weekend, she returned to the gates alongside Sen. Andy Kim, Rep. Analilia Mejia, and Governor Sherrill in solidarity with the detainees.
Advocates say ICE responded that night by deploying an armored vehicle and using pepper balls and tear gas on demonstrators.
On Saturday, a small group of pro-ICE counter-protesters arrived. Conservative influencer Cam Higby pepper-sprayed demonstrators while flanked by his private security.
By late Saturday, Sherrill said masked individuals had attacked barriers, thrown projectiles at state police, and set tires on fire — and she condemned them as people who “put both peaceful protestors and law enforcement in danger.”
The systemic picture
Strip away the curfew, the airport threat, the dueling press conferences, and what remains is this: roughly 300 people inside a privately run building in Newark say they are being mistreated badly enough to stop eating.
The federal government has decided that no one outside the building gets to verify whether that is true.
Not the governor. Not state health inspectors. Not the city that filed suit over the permits.
Not the congresswoman who tried to walk through the door and got charged for it.
The protests at Delaney Hall are about a federal agency that has decided opacity is a feature, not a bug — and a detention system that profits even if the people locked inside the concentration camps aren’t eating.
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