New Jersey lawmakers condemn conditions inside Delaney Hall detention center in Newark
Following a Saturday tour of Delaney Hall, Sen. Andy Kim and Rep. Rob Menendez described troubling conditions inside the ICE facility.
Two New Jersey members of Congress condemned conditions inside Newark’s Delaney Hall detention center after a Saturday tour they said revealed filthy bathrooms, abusive guards, and inadequate medical care.
Democratic Sen. Andy Kim and Rep. Rob Menendez, D-Hudson, also said the immigrant detainees locked inside the Doremus Avenue fortress are regularly told they’re going to be deported to Ebola-stricken nations, such as Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
“These are the types of tactics that shows the cruelty is the point,” Kim said as he stood in the rain outside the 1,000-bed facility. “Cruelty is what this administration, what [U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement] is trying to do.”
Menendez, who has also visited Delaney several times, castigated the private prison firm GEO Group that operates the facility for not providing detainees with the health care they need.
“The staff says they’re going to be responsive,” Menendez said. “They say people get seen within 24 hours of giving a medical request, which is not true.”
“Some people have gone days, if not weeks, if not months, [without] getting medical treatment after putting it in,” Menendez said. “We continue to hear one narrative from GEO and ICE, then another from the individuals who are being held inside there.”
The lawmakers’ visit comes the day after about 300 detainees launched a hunger and labor strike meant to illuminate the inhumane conditions they say they’ve endured, including worm-riddled food, undrinkable water, overcrowding, and a lack of air conditioning.
“They treat them like they’re animals,” Gabriella Soto, whose husband has been detained at Delaney, said Friday. “Family shouldn’t be crying leaving these places.”
Neither ICE nor GEO Group responded to press inquiries late Saturday night.
But both agencies have regularly denied any negligence or wrongdoing, and often frame the accusations as politically motivated attacks meant to derail the Trump administration’s sweeping immigration agenda.
Kim said he and Menendez took “extensive notes” during their tour and plan to follow up with Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin. But that doesn’t guarantee things will change.
“Eyes wide open. This is not the first time we’ve been here,” Kim said. “We’ve been here together before. We have raised these concerns before … [but] we have to make sure we’re pushing forward.”
Health and sanitation weren’t the only complaints detainees had. Kim said many complained about an ever-shifting court schedule that left them wondering whether they’ll ever get out.
He pointed to one immigration judge who, next Tuesday, will have a docket loaded with 74 cases.
“How can any judge have 74 cases before them?” Kim asked. “This is clearly a farce. That is not justice.”
Menendez said he and Kim plan to continue inspecting the facility in the hope that it nudges staff to improve living conditions.
As he spoke, detainees flicked their cell lights on and off to show the small crowd outside they appreciated their presence. Some even lay against the windows, creating ghostly silhouettes that vanished each time the lights died.
“There’s no criminals in there,” Menendez said. “You have a daughter who should have been graduating high school. You have a pregnant woman in there. You have a woman who suffered a miscarriage in there. You have fathers, grandfathers, mothers, grandmothers. That’s who ICE is holding in Delaney Hall right now.”
“Why is it acceptable to Americans that our neighbors are being held in there?” he continued. “We need the American people to understand this is not who we are as a country.”
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Steve Janoski is a multi-award-winning journalist whose work has appeared in the New York Post, USA Today, the Associated Press, The Bergen Record and the Asbury Park Press. His reporting has exposed corruption, government malfeasance and police misconduct