cross-posted from: https://infosec.pub/post/47130310
The Newark-based ICE facility is operated by the Geo Group, one of the biggest private prison companies in the US. According to activists and detainees, between 300 and 400 detainees are participating in the strike, demanding improved food, ventilation and medical care – and for their immigration cases to proceed.
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A letter from detainees was published by advocates on Tuesday morning. Two men recently released from Delaney confirmed in interviews with the Guardian their participation in the strike, despite denials by the Trump administration that any such strike was happening.
“We are detained, we are on hunger strike, demanding due process rights and the improvement of conditions,” one of the men said in an interview with the Guardian. “We are not criminals. We are people who enter [the facility] with a clean record. We pay our taxes. [We are] Fathers. Mothers. Spouses of citizens with existing petitions.”
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Delaney Hall strikers have complained of inedible food that they have observed containing worms, deficient infrastructure with no air conditioning and poor ventilation, a persistent flu and other viruses spreading throughout the facility, delayed medical care and lags in their immigration cases, according to their Tuesday letter. In privately-run ICE detention centers nationwide, detainees perform cooking, cleaning and laundry work, getting paid as little as $1 an hour.
“One thing about this entire chaotic situation has been consistent, and that is what people inside are reporting about their experience and what our federal representatives have witnessed,” said Amy Torres, executive director at the New Jersey Alliance for Immigrant Justice. “Conditions were bad enough for people to lose their pregnancies. They were bad enough to start a lice infestation, to have a strain of flu that has been going around untreated. That’s what got people to strike.”
Kim made a long series of posts to X on Sunday listing allegations about Delaney Hall, including that a woman had a miscarriage at the facility and had to cope by herself, while another woman who was pregnant was unable to obtain full OB/GYN support, people were detained there after being arrested during their interviews for permanent US residency (green cards), and a host of other alleged injustices.
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Throughout the day, families with small children arrived at the facility gate asking to visit loved ones inside, only to be turned away.
“I was in there for three and half months. It’s heavy, we’re still not eating. I hope they help the ones inside,” said another man with a trembling voice, who spoke with the Guardian shortly after being released from the facility. The man seemed shaken, overwhelmed and nervous as he stepped on to the street where protesters chanted. “I don’t want to say anything more because then they’ll take me back,” he said in Spanish, without giving his name, as dozens of other media then swarmed around him.
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“If this is what federal agents are willing to do to the public, what are they doing to the people they have in detention?” Torres asked.
Shit has been boiling over in the past week regarding this. Andy Kim, one of NJ’s senators was pepper sprayed and injured his hand while attempting to mediate between the ICE ~~brownshirts~~ agents and the protestors. I’ve seen footage of ice agents pushing protestors into moving traffic. Rumor is they’re planning on moving all the detainees from this site to Texas, but I’m not sure how accurate that is.