Family visitations to resume at New Jersey immigration detention center following violent protests
(NEWARK, N.J.) — Family visitation hours are set to resume on Sunday at the Delaney Hall Immigration detention facility in Newark, New Jersey, following violent clashes between protesters and police that prompted arrests and a mandatory curfew around the facility, according to the state’s governor.
“DHS has met our demand to restore family visitation,” New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill announced in a statement on Sunday morning. Visits had been interrupted by the ongoing protest over the alleged poor treatment of detainees at the hall.
“Starting today, limited visitation will resume at noon, and regular visitation hours will be restored beginning tomorrow,” Sherrill said on X, in part.
The governor advised families to contact the Delaney Hall facility for additional details, adding that law enforcement on the scene will help escort families into the facility.
“It is critical that outside actors allow this to happen safely,” Sherrill said at a news conference on Sunday.
“We did not cave to the governor’s demands,” a Department of Homeland Security official told ABC News on Sunday, adding that “visitation was suspended because the violent riots outside the facility made it unsafe for our officers, detainees’ families and lawyers to visit the facility.”
“With Delaney Hall secure, ICE operations continue as normal,” the official said.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., said in a statement on Sunday that he conducted an oversight visit to Delaney Hall that morning with New Jersey Reps. Rob Menendez, Josh Gottheimer, and LaMonica McIver.
“The conditions of confinement we witnessed firsthand and discussed with approximately two dozen detainees at the Delaney Hall detention center shock the conscience,” Jeffries said in his statement, in part. “Immigration enforcement in this country should be fair, just and humane. The Trump administration is doing the exact opposite.”
Jeffries further said that during the oversight visit he and the others in other House members “learned of unsanitary living conditions, lack of adequate medical care and unhealthy food. This is not America.”
“Delaney Hall must be shut down immediately,” Jeffries’ statement said.
The Department of Homeland Security has previously denied the allegations, along with reports that detainees are staging a hunger strike in protest.
In a separate post Sunday morning, Sherrill said that overnight, masked individuals at Delaney Hall, attacked the barrier in the protected protest area outside of the facility and began “aggressive and dangerous actions” against Newark and New Jersey State Police, including “throwing projectiles, utilizing the barriers as weapons, and setting tires on fire in the street.”
“These actions put both peaceful protestors and law enforcement in danger,” Sherrill said. “The police were not in protective gear; they had been on location since early in the morning, ensuring protestors and counter protestors had areas to exercise their rights safely.”
“As these dangerous actions took place, additional support was needed to protect civilians and law enforcement,” Sherrill added.
At a press conference later Sunday morning at a State Police facility in Newark, Sherrill said three people were arrested as a result of Saturday night’s clashes with police, including one individual who was charged with illegal possession of a weapon.
The developments came after protests began outside the facility last week and some demonstrators clashed with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents.
In separate statements released on Friday, Mullin and Acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche said nine protesters had been arrested. Mullin alleged that some of those who were arrested “bit, kicked, and punched officers.”
In a statement on Saturday, Newark Mayor Ras Baraka cited the “escalating situation” and “the increasing need for police intervention” in ordering the curfew for the half-mile around Delaney Hall, which began at 12 a.m. on Sunday and will remain in effect nightly from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m.
A state police official said during Sunday’s press conference with Sherrill that law enforcement was working to secure the area around the facility and will reevaluate whether to allow protesters and the new media to get closer than a half-mile of the facility.
“Multiple individuals have already been arrested and found in possession of weapons, underscoring the seriousness of the threat,” Baraka said in the statement.
Following days of protests, Sherrill ordered state police to establish a perimeter outside of the ICE detainment center.
At a press briefing on Saturday, Sherrill told reporters that six people were arrested on Friday night outside the facility, where tear gas was deployed and some officers on horses helped disperse the crowd.
The governor defended her decision to bring in state law enforcement to the scene.
She called on protesters, who have been challenging the allegedly poor conditions at the Newark detainment center, to “turn the temperature down,” and not give ICE a reason to “exacerbate the situation,” citing incidents in other cities such as Minneapolis.
“I refuse to let that happen in New Jersey. I will not give ICE a pretext to expand operations at Delaney Hall or across our state. I will not put lives at risk,” she said at a news conference.
During Saturday morning’s demonstrations, a handful of pro-ICE demonstrators gathered at the facility.
The pro-ICE crowd, which was dwarfed by the Delaney Hall protesters, arrived with signs, American flags and other paraphernalia supporting the federal agency and its immigration enforcement crackdown.
Activists and Democratic leaders have alleged that the 300 inmates inside the ICE facility are not being properly fed, not receiving medical care and are living in poorly maintained quarters.
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin has repeatedly condemned the protests.
“Anyone who assaults law enforcement will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Law and order will prevail,” he said in an X post Friday.
As police erected protest barriers on Friday night, ICE agents moved inside the building’s perimeter fence.
New Jersey State Police Lt. Col. David Sierotowicz told New York City ABC station WABC that ICE officers agreed to stand down with state police assuming responsibility.
However, tensions escalated between the protesters and state officers, some of whom were wearing riot gear and shields. Tear gas was deployed and protesters were pushed back.
Sherrill said some of the people arrested Friday night were from outside New Jersey and she alleged that outside agitators were in the crowds.
During Saturday’s demonstrations, men wearing clothing with the Proud Boys logo were seen in the pro-ICE protest group.
New Jersey Attorney General Jennifer Davenport said in a statement Saturday that most demonstrators complied with an order Friday night to let vehicles through, though she alleged a “limited number did not comply with repeated requests to clear a safe passage for the vehicles.”
Davenport further alleged that some protesters “took dangerous actions, including deploying fireworks and throwing gas canisters at law enforcement, that put everyone in harm’s way.”
The attorney general added that state police did not fire any rubber bullets or use batons during the Friday incident.
Some protesters decried the actions by the officers.
Rachel Cohen, one of the protesters who was at the site Friday, told WABC that she was worried that demonstrators were being silenced.
“It is not helpful to quell protest for the sake of a false peace,” she said. “There is no peace while we are torturing our neighbors on government dime inside this facility.”
The incident was the latest heated clash between Delaney Hall protesters and law enforcement.
Sen. Andy Kim of New Jersey was tear-gassed on Monday as he tried to de-escalate the situation. DHS Secretary Mullin told reporters Wednesday that Kim “probably shouldn’t have been there.”
Robert Frazer, the U.S. attorney for the district of New Jersey, said Saturday that Brendan John Geier, 26, of Madison, New Jersey, was charged with kicking a federal officer and biting two others during a confrontation at Delaney Hall Thursday.
Geier was released and prohibited from returning to Delaney Hall, according to Frazer. Attorney information for Geier was not immediately available.
While Kim and other Democratic leaders have visited the facility and said they saw the poor conditions firsthand, Sherrill said she has been denied access inside.
Sherrill urged protesters to remain peaceful and continue to speak out against the alleged conditions in the detention center.
She also continued her calls on the federal government to allow detainees’ families to have visitation rights and have state health inspectors conduct a full report.
“I’m going to work with federal delegation to get answers,” she said.
ABC News’ Jack Moore and Luke Barr contributed to this report.
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