Press advocates question police tactics after photojournalists and reporters were detained

A sweeping security perimeter around Newark’s Delaney Hall detention center and the roundup of journalists alongside protesters Sunday night have raised concerns about free speech and press freedom.

State and local law enforcement moved in on protesters shortly after a city-mandated 9 p.m. curfew took effect Sunday around the immigration detention center. The facility has seen escalating unrest since about 300 detainees launched a hunger strike and work stoppage May 22.

Videos reviewed by The Jersey Vindicator showed officers in riot gear — some on horseback — advancing on protesters, surrounding the crowd, and catching photojournalists and reporters in what’s known as a “kettle,” a controversial crowd-control tactic in which police envelop a group to restrict movement.

Mickey H. Osterreicher, general counsel for the National Press Photographers Association, said at least two credentialed photojournalists got trapped in the kettle and were arrested, despite state officials’ assurances that the press could remain on scene.

“We’re still trying to figure out where they are, given that they’ve been off the street for well over 12 hours,” Osterreicher said Monday. “They have disappeared into the system, and I’m not sure where things are at.”

“I’m kind of dumbfounded,” he continued. “The whole idea is that journalists are supposed to be there, they’re not participants; they’re observing, gathering, disseminating news and information to the public. Moving them from the scene so they can’t see or hear, report on, or document what’s happening runs counter to the whole idea of First Amendment protections.”

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State and local officials have said the restrictions were necessary to “lower the temperature” outside the 1,000-bed detention facility, which has become the main front in the battle over the Trump administration’s draconian immigration policies.

The New Jersey State Police took over safety operations Friday after repeated clashes between protesters and federal immigration agents outside the facility, which is New Jersey’s largest immigration detention center.

Newark Mayor Ras Baraka imposed a half-mile curfew around Delaney Hall on Sunday, while the State Police established checkpoints on Doremus Avenue at Wilson and Roanoke avenues, effectively moving the press well beyond the sight and sound of unfolding events.

Gov. Mikie Sherrill and state Attorney General Jennifer Davenport said they hoped their decision to call in the State Police would reduce tensions while protecting both public safety and the constitutionally enshrined right to protest.

“Ensuring and protecting public safety is paramount, and we have to make sure that this area is safe,” Davenport said at a Sunday press conference, with the governor at her side. “So areas right now have been and are continuing to be swept, and we’re continually reassessing as we’re able, to make sure that once the time comes, that it is protected and it is made sure that it is safe.”

But observers have criticized the restrictions as raising significant First Amendment concerns.

Constitutional law experts described the half-mile radius around the facility as a potential “no-speech zone” and said keeping demonstrators and reporters so far away could undermine both the right to protest and journalists’ ability to independently document government actions.

“Federal agents have proven that we cannot believe their accounts. They have proven unreliable after video comes out; they have been found unreliable and not credible by judges and juries,” said Adam Rose, deputy director of advocacy for the Freedom of the Press Foundation. “So without the brave men and women of the press, we wouldn’t have a complete sense of what’s really happening on the street. We would not know if the police are heroes or villains, we would not know if the protesters are heroes or villains.”

On Monday, the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey said it sent a letter to Davenport and Baraka detailing constitutional concerns about the curfew, as well as the road closures around Delaney Hall.

“We urged for an immediate exception to be made to the Newark curfew to allow members of the press to remain within the curfew area after hours,” Jeanne LoCicero, the group’s legal director, said in a statement. “We all have a constitutional right to demand justice for the people detained inside Delaney Hall, and the ACLU of New Jersey will do all we can to hold the government accountable to the people it is meant to serve.”

The curfew and the crackdown

Demonstrations escalated over more than a week as protesters flocked to the Doremus Avenue facility to support striking detainees, who have denounced Delaney Hall’s squalid living conditions.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Department of Homeland Security, and GEO Group, the private prison firm that runs the site, have denied accusations of mistreatment.

By Sunday, authorities had already established checkpoints on Doremus Avenue, roughly a half-mile from the facility, effectively sealing off the area to anyone who could not prove they worked there. The curfew came after clashes Saturday night that officials said left several people injured.

Before protesters were rounded up shortly after 9 p.m. Sunday, some could be seen in videos singing “Give Peace a Chance.” Many were wearing goggles to protect themselves from tear gas. Some wore helmets and knee pads in case they were forced to the ground. People filming the scene on Sunday said some police fired projectiles they believed to be rubber bullets, while others said civilians outside the curfew zone were swept up in the arrests.

After being rounded up, one trooper told the media they could leave the kettle one by one if they could present press credentials.

“If you are press, you’ve got an opportunity right now, and that’s to leave,” the officer said, according to the video. “If you don’t leave here now in an orderly fashion, you are coming with us.”

Most of the reporters and photographers who handed over their press passes were eventually released and sent away. But some weren’t so lucky.

Activists say police arrested independent journalists, including Liborio Adorno Castillo of Radio Cosecha. But state officials have claimed no media members were arrested.

One activist group, Climate Revolution Action Network New Jersey, said two of the 46 protesters arrested Sunday night were members of the organization’s leadership team, including the ecology director and a wildlife photographer.

They had been outside the curfew zone when officers grabbed them, the group’s spokesman said.

But as of late Monday afternoon, they were still being held at Essex County Jail next door to Delaney Hall and hadn’t been booked, processed, given a phone call, or allowed to access attorneys, a group spokesperson said.

“What’s happening outside Delaney Hall is a clear and consistent violation of our First Amendment rights and puts everyone in New Jersey at risk,” said Ben Dziobek, Climate Revolution’s executive director. “Governor Sherrill’s decision to violently shut down protests, publicly disparage us as ‘outside actors,’ and blatantly lie about what’s happening is making the situation worse and giving the Trump administration more than enough cover to send in the feds.”

“There’s no way to spin this,” he continued. “This is a reprehensible use of state resources and a huge distraction from what’s happening inside Delaney Hall.”

On Monday, the State Police refused to answer questions about the encounter, instead referring inquiries to the Newark Police Department, even though the State Police were the lead agency.

Officials defend police response

The Attorney General’s Office did not provide a comment when contacted by The Jersey Vindicator about press restrictions and arrests.

But in a written statement issued shortly before midnight Sunday, Davenport defended the police response and said protesters had been repeatedly warned beforehand in English and Spanish about the curfew.

Many complied, she said. But officers arrested a small group who allegedly came to the protest wearing “helmets, shields, or gas masks” and deliberately refused commands to leave.

“Their actions put the public at risk, and I am grateful to law enforcement for de-escalating the situation,” Davenport said. “We are grateful for the many peaceful individuals who exercised their right to protest and complied with the City of Newark’s curfew order tonight.”

But Rose, of the Freedom of the Press Foundation, stressed that journalists should still be allowed at the site.

“We are poorer as a society without the press being able to keep us informed,” he said. “Democracy does not work without an informed public. And an informed public does not work without a free press. That’s the whole game right there.”