The people locked inside Delaney Hall say they have been served food crawling with worms. Their attorneys say roughly 300 of them stopped eating altogether — a hunger strike over spoiled meals, cold cells with no blankets, floors instead of beds, and medical care that never comes. Pro-ICE counterprotesters showed up to support those responsible.
On Saturday, that misery spilled out onto the street in Newark, where two crowds — one demanding the detention facility be shut down, the other waving flags in support of the agents who run it — faced each other across a line of metal barricades and riot shields.
It was the latest flashpoint in more than a week of confrontation outside the facility, and a snapshot of how far the fight over immigration detention has escalated.
Pro-ICE counterprotesters arrive
Saturday morning brought a heavy police presence: officers with riot shields blocking the entrance, federal agents carrying long guns, and an armored vehicle parked outside. Police set up fencing to wall the two groups apart.
On one side, demonstrators supporting the detainees banged drums and chanted “Shut down Delaney Hall, free them all!” and “Shut this racist system down!”
A group of healthcare workers held signs reading “Doctor against deportations” and “Health care worker against deportations.”
Others carried signs that simply said “ICE OUT NOW.”
“I’m against these people being detained unlawfully — some of them have never had any convictions, and they’re just in there,” said a protester named Dana, who declined to give her last name.
“It’s not okay to treat human beings this way. I don’t care how you feel about immigration, we’re all human beings.”
Jacqueline Calderone, who said she personally knew people recently detained by ICE, said, “These people don’t come here to commit crimes, they come here for a better life for them, their loved ones. They deserve rights. They deserve a fair process, due process.”
Ashley Kussman said she was there for detainees being held “in cruel conditions and who are being abused by our government and by a private corporation acting for our government” — a reference to the Department of Homeland Security and GEO Group, the private prison company that operates the facility.
“I support the freedom to live without having to worry that you’re going to get kidnapped off the street by somebody in a mask and a uniform,” she told The Associated Press.
On the other side of the fence, a group of pro-ICE counterprotesters held American flags and chanted “USA, USA.” Their signs read “Make America Great Again” and “Support ICE.”
One of the Pro-ICE counterprotesters who gave his name only as Michael defended the agents: “They’re just trying to do their jobs. These officers are just under crazy scrutiny. They just go out every day to risk their lives.”
A governor trying to lower the temperature
The standoff comes after days of tension that turned violent. A day before Saturday’s protests, New Jersey’s Democratic Gov. Mikie Sherrill announced that the state would carve out a protected peaceful-protest zone outside the facility.
She cited safety concerns drawn directly from this winter’s federal operation in Minneapolis, where immigration agents shot and killed two U.S. citizens — Renee Good, a 37-year-old mother of three, in early January, and Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old ICU nurse, weeks later.
Video evidence has repeatedly contradicted the government’s account of both killings.
On Saturday, Sherrill said she was “grateful to the vast majority of protesters who have assembled peacefully and raised their voices about Delaney Hall’s conditions,” and urged everyone to “keep the temperature down.”
But she drew a hard line at out-of-state agitators after six people were arrested late Friday for refusing police orders to disperse.
“To the people coming from out of state to create chaos and dangerous situations, you should not be here,” she said.
“You are not helping the people detained at Delaney Hall. You’re not helping detainee families, and you’re certainly not keeping New Jersey safe.”
New Jersey State Police said five of the six arrested Friday were from out of state — four from New York, one from Pennsylvania, one from New Jersey.
One faced a charge of disorderly conduct and endangering another person; the other five were charged with disorderly conduct and obstruction.
That came on top of nine demonstrators arrested Thursday following clashes with ICE officers.
Two irreconcilable accounts
The federal government tells a very different story than the people inside.
The Department of Homeland Security said Saturday that the arrests came amid a “coordinated campaign of violence against our ICE law enforcement,” declaring, “This violence against law enforcement must end.”
On social media, the agency said its agents had “been bitten and faced death threats and assaults from violent rioters in New Jersey.”
DHS has flatly denied that any hunger strike is happening at all.
GEO Group, the private company paid roughly $60 million a year to run Delaney Hall, acknowledged in a Friday statement that staff responded to a “physical altercation involving detainees” on Thursday and used “control measures” to resolve it, “including the limited use of chemical agents.”
The company said affected detainees were checked by on-site medical staff and “cleared with no serious injuries,” and called the allegations against the facility “baseless” and “politically motivated.”
It said detainees have “around-the-clock access to medical care” and dietitian-approved meals.
That denial sits against a growing record of testimony from the other side.
Selenia Destefani, managing attorney of Nova Law Group, which represents dozens of detainees there, has said her clients were given expired food and meals containing worms, and that some who joined the hunger strike were placed in solitary confinement or transferred elsewhere.
Some, she said, were released only after going without treatment for cancer, diabetes, and depression.
A detained Colombian man told Newsweek that guards punched him during a confrontation he described as “very traumatic.”
By Friday night, the scene had nearly flipped.
ICE agents who had lined up in front of protesters agreed to stand down and move behind the building’s fence as state police took over, according to State Police Lt. Col. David Sierotowicz.
When some demonstrators refused to move to the designated zones, troopers issued repeated dispersal warnings and then moved in around 10 p.m., pushing the crowd back and deploying pepper spray.
Sierotowicz said some protesters were seen retrieving gas masks, fireworks, rocks, and other projectiles.
The bigger picture
Delaney Hall is not an outlier — it is the model. The 1,000-bed facility is the largest immigration detention center on the East Coast and was the first new facility to open under the current Trump administration, reactivated in May 2025 under a 15-year contract with GEO Group.
From the start it has been a site of conflict: Newark Mayor Ras Baraka was arrested outside it last year, Rep. LaMonica McIver was charged after intervening, and Sen. Andy Kim was pepper-sprayed during a more recent protest.
Officials at every level have been repeatedly denied entry to inspect conditions inside.
What is unfolding in Newark is the predictable result of a system built to detain as many people as possible, as fast as possible, for profit, with as little outside scrutiny as the operators can manage.
A private corporation collects nine figures of public money to hold human beings — many with no criminal record, many still waiting on due process — and when those people say they are being starved and neglected, the answer from the government is not an independent inspection but a press release about “violence against law enforcement.”
The barricades in Newark separate two crowds.
They also mark the line between the people demanding that detainees be treated as human, and a machine that has every financial and political incentive not to.
Resist Hate covers immigration enforcement, civil rights, and government accountability. Read more of our immigration coverage.
Inside Delaney Hall: Two Irreconcilable Accounts
What detainees and their attorneys allege vs. what the government and its private contractor say. The federal government has blocked independent inspections, so most claims cannot be verified by outside parties.
Roughly 300 detainees refused meals over spoiled food and conditions, attorneys say.
DHS: “There is NO HUNGER STRIKE at Delaney Hall.”
Expired meals, some containing live worms, per attorney Selenia Destefani of Nova Law Group.
“Dietitian-approved meals” plus religious and specialty diets.
Some detainees released only after going untreated for cancer, diabetes, and depression.
“Around-the-clock access to medical care”; “No one is being abused or denied medical care.”
Detainees say they were pepper-sprayed and beaten; one man told Newsweek guards punched him.
“Limited use of chemical agents” to resolve a “physical altercation”; detainees “cleared with no serious injuries.”
Officials repeatedly denied entry: Mayor Baraka arrested, Rep. McIver charged, Sen. Kim pepper-sprayed, Gov. Sherrill blocked.
Services are “monitored by ICE” and DHS for compliance with detention standards.
Sources: NBC News, CNN, Newsweek, The Marshall Project. Compiled by Resist Hate · resisth8.com
