A hunger and labor strike by 300 ICE detainees at a controversial private jail in Newark, New Jersey that started over the Memorial Day weekend that has prompted global attention has been dismissed by President Trump at a midday press conference where he said the protestors at the site were being paid without offering any evidence.
“These aren’t protesters-- these people are fake---they’re all paid for,” Trump said, suggesting that their obvisioly handmade signs were mass produced.
This morning on What's Going On we heard from Sally Pillay and Terri Suess with Eyes on Ice NJ for the latest at Delaney Hall including how listeners can support the detainees and their families who have fallen prey to the Trump deportation machine that includes reliance on for profit-private jails like Delaney Hall.
Over the last several days elected officials, including New Jersey Gov. Mickie Sherrill, Sen. Andy Kim, Rep. Bob Menendez, Rep. Lamonica McIver and several other House members have visited Delaney Hall and heard first hand from detainees and their families about subhuman treatment at the private prison run by GEO.
Some detainees have recounted that they have already signed off on self-deportation but are still languishing for months in the GEO facility.
Over the holiday weekend Gabriela Soto, 28, whose husband Martin was abducted by ICE back in February, told WBAI she and her two children were ALL American citizens but that didn't matter to immigration officials.
"My husband was out getting diapers and he was just taken because of a language barrier," Soto told listeners. According to Soto, who is expecting her third child, the fact that her husband was married to an American citizen and had two children who were citizens was of no consequence. "The judge didn't think that was good enough to release him and that's what is wrong with the system. People have legal rights and they are being taken away."
Gov. Sherrill was refused entry on Monday. She has called for the private jail to be closed. GEO is currently fighting the City of Newark over the municipality's right to require a certificate of occupancy and regular fire department inspections of the massive congregant care site.
In a press statement, DHS accused the Democratic elected officials of spreading "falsehoods."
"The facts are all detainees are provided with 3 meals a day, clean water, clothing, bedding, showers, soap, and toiletries. Illegal aliens also have access to phones to communicate with their family members and lawyers. Certified dieticians evaluate meals. In fact, ICE has higher detention standards than most U.S. prisons that hold actual U.S. citizens."
Since Delaney Hall opened at the start of Trump 2.0, detainees, their families and their supporters have complained of inhumane treatment, lack of basic medical care, rampant infectious disease and inedible food at the private jail.
Back in December, 41 year-old Jean Wilson Brutus, who was originally from Haiti, died the first day he was in custody. In the press release confirming his death, federal officials denigrated him as a "criminal illegal alien" something his family vehemently denies asserting he had gone through a rigorous four month vetting process in order to enter the U.S., according to reporting in the New Jersey Monitor.
The Trump regime has regularly and systematically mischaracterized the individuals they have abducted off the streets or from the DOJ's immigration courts as criminals despite multiple well sourced reports that over 70 percent have no criminal record.
Earlier this month, Minnesota prosecutors charged an ICE agent for a January shooting of a Venezuelan immigrant in the leg and then lying about the basic facts in the case which at the time DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said was "a defensive shot to defend" the officer's life.
Last week, a federal judge threw out the federal criminal case brought against Kilmar Brego Garcia that the Trump administration had originally sent to a notorious prison in El Salvador. Judge Waverly D. Crenshaw cited in his ruling Garcia's assertions the Trump DOJ had brought the case as a "vindictive and selective prosecution in violation of the Fifth Amendment's Due Process Clause."
So far, this year 18 detainees have died in ICE or private custody across the country. Last year, 32 people died in ICE custody, the most since 2004. Others have been shot or killed and died in the process of running away.
At the start of Trump 2.0, there were roughly 40,000 people in ICE custody. In just one year, that number was a record 73,000 at the start of this year, according to the American Immigration Council.
In the letter announcing their strike, the 300 detainees alleged wholesale violations of the law, including federal immigration judges disregarding Habeas Corpus petitions that have been granted detainees in federal court.
"At the moment of entry, we turned ourselves in to border authorities, who processed us and some of us were granted 'parole' or given a court date to continue with our processes, in accordance with the opportunity granted to us by the Constitution and the laws of the United States," the detainees wrote. "Likewise, we had periodic check-ins in order to report to the authorities. We also obtained work permits, Social Security, we filed taxes, and we were working legally and contributing to the country's economy."
"We must also mention that within this group there are individuals who crossed the border, integrated into society, formed families, and have lived in the country for 10 years or more with their citizen children, who despite not having legal status have also been paying their annual taxes and have a clean record. We find individuals from the LGBTQ+ community with diagnoses of illnesses such as HIV, cancer, diabetes, heart problems, among others, who are not receiving proper medical attention for the aforementioned conditions."
DHS Secretary MarkWayne Mullin, appeared on Fox News to complain about the Delaney Hall protestors "barricading our employees from coming in and out of the facility" and then went on to threaten to prevent international flights from landing at Newark Liberty International Airport with the World Cup set to startin just a few weeks in the region.
"We're currently drawing up plans to say, "Listen, in these sanctuary cities where the radical left Democrats aren't allowing us to do our job and enforce federal laws, then we shouldn't be processing flights into their cities either," Mullin said.
When asked about the pepper spraying of Sen. Andy Kim at the Newark site earlier in the week, the DHS Secretary said the Senator shouldn't have been at the facility. Kim is a member of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs.
"This isn't about me," Kim responded on social media. "This is about the detainees and their families, the lawlessness we're seeing from ICE. I was willing to take a risk and I'd do it all over again to keep people safe."
"Don't let ICE and this administration lie to you. I saw inside Delaney Hall with my own eyes. The conditions are absolutely unacceptable," Kim also posted on social media.
The Trump and Mullin vitriol mark the first rekindling of the roiling controversy over the regime's mass deportation strategy that marked the end of former DHS Secretary Kristi Noem tenure and the broad daylight assassinations of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis. Those murders amidst a siege of Minneapolis/St. Paul by masked and violent federal immigration officers that prompted massive public outcry.
In some mainstream news outlets Noem's firing was portrayed as the potential for some kind of moderation or recalibration.
Several months before the Trump regime fixated on Minneapolis, it had already run into stiff local resistance in Newark over Delaney Hall.
Delaney Hall was the scene back on May 9, 2025, when masked federal immigration officers seized Mayor Ras Baraka off of a public street outside Delaney Hall. Charges against Baraka were ultimately dropped, but charges were brought against Rep. LaMonica McIver, who along with Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-NJ), and Rep. Robert Menendez Jr. (D-NJ), tried to shield Baraka from the federal agents.
McIver faces 17 years in jail if convicted on the charges.
