Delaney Hall Latest Flashpoint For Trump Immigration Agenda

By Benjamin J. Hulac
Washington Correspondent For the NJ Spotlight News

WASHINGTON — Federal immigration detention sites including a prominent facility in Newark remain squarely in the national eye as Democrats vow to challenge President Donald Trump’s hardline immigration agenda, a central focus of his second term.

Six months into office, the Trump administration has made heavy use of a network of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, detention facilities nationwide, to hold and then deport immigrants, some of whom are held weeks without being charged. Trump is now asking Congress for more money to expand ICE operations and detention facilities.

Delaney Hall in Newark, one of the largest privately operated detention sites, shot to national attention after oversight visits there by Democratic lawmakers, including Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-10th) who was arrested and charged by federal prosecutors after a confrontation between elected officials, protestors and federal police last month.

McIver has dismissed the charges as an effort to “criminalize and deter legislative oversight.”

She is scheduled to be arraigned June 25 in Newark federal court.

Tensions soar after US senator manhandled

Democratic lawmakers returned to Delaney Hall last week after protests Thursday night where inmates rebelled against unsanitary conditions, food shortages and other unsafe conditions. Four inmates escaped after pushing through what was said to be a poorly constructed wall.

Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-12th) called for a congressional investigation of GEO Group, the company that runs the site and dozens of others for ICE.

National political tension over federal immigration policy skyrocketed in recent days after federal agents manhandled then handcuffed a sitting U.S. senator, Democrat Alex Padilla of California, and his fellow Democrats said they will not be deterred from scrutinizing the Trump administration’s immigration policy, in particular through oversight visits to ICE holding facilities.

Democrats’ fury boiled at the Capitol last week and into the weekend after agents in homeland security chief Kristi Noem’s protection detail tackled Padilla after he questioned Noem at a federal building in Los Angeles.

As word spread Thursday in the Capitol complex of Padilla’s detention — he was released and not charged — a few dozen Democratic House members, including Rep. Rob Menendez (D-8th), walked across the building and demanded, without success, meetings with Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune.

Video shows Padilla interrupting the Noem event and identifying himself — “My name is Senator Alex Padilla, and I have questions for the secretary,” he said — before agents removed him.

Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said online, falsely, that Padilla had not identified himself and lunged at Noem.

Escalating trend

“This is another incident of Trump and his administration abusing their power,” McIver told reporters Thursday, calling Padilla’s treatment an affront to his rights protected under the Constitution’s First Amendment.

Democrats view the roughing up of Padilla with the charges against McIver as pieces of an escalating trend.

‘I worked in nations with authoritarian leadership. I never thought I would see anything like this here at home.’ — Sen. Andy Kim (D-NJ)

“This notion that members of Congress should be intimidated for doing their job is ridiculous,” said Rep. Troy Carter, a Democrat from Louisiana, in an interview with NJ Spotlight News. “This is America, this is not Russia. This is not some dictatorship.”

Federal law and ICE policy allows Congress members to show up at detention sites without warning for inspection visits.

“Let them arrest and indict all of us, but we’re not going to quit,” said Carter, adding that he’s visited two ICE locations in his home state.

How Democrats in Congress reacted

Menendez and Sen. Andy Kim (D-NJ) showed up Friday afternoon outside Delaney Hall to inspect the site.

On the Senate floor Thursday, Kim and other Democratic members condemned Padilla’s treatment.

“I worked in nations with authoritarian leadership,” Kim said. “I never thought I would see anything like this here at home.”

“This is not an isolated incident,” said Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), linking it to the charges against McIver. “We see, time and time again, this administration trying to precipitate a response by the misuse and the abuse of force.”

In court papers, prosecutors accused McIver of impeding law enforcement work during a May scrum outside Delaney Hall.

Defending McIver

Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the top Democrat in the House, said he would raise money for McIver’s legal defense.

Federal law allows lawmakers to use campaign funds for their legal defense, as former U.S. Senator Bob Menendez did last year.

The U.S. government signed a $1 billion, 15-year contract in February with GEO Group to run Delaney Hall.

Carter said he was unaware of any party-wide effort to raise money for the legal defenses of McIver and other Democrats who might be charged in connection with oversight visits to ICE sites.

“But I’d certainly give her some,” Carter said. “The circumstances surrounding her indictment are ridiculous. There was a crowd, a ton of people. She’s being moved around by just inertia.”

How Republicans in Congress reacted

Republicans including Reps. Jeff Van Drew (R-2nd) and Tom Kean Jr. (R-7th) and Johnson, who sets the agenda of the House, have called for McIver to be punished, perhaps through a formal congressional censure.

On Friday, Kean said on social media that McIver should be “held accountable, not applauded.”

GEO Group’s political action committee, an entity that raises money and donates to politicians, gave Kean $1,000 for his reelection campaign last year, federal records show.

The Trump administration is seeking to expand the use of privately run detention sites.

It requested funding from Congress, which writes and approves the annual federal budget, for 100,000 detention beds for ICE facilities. Geo Group and CoreCivic, the other company that dominates the private prison industry, donated to Trump’s inaugural committee.

CoreCivic operates the Elizabeth Detention Center, another ICE site in New Jersey.

An immense tax bill Republicans are pushing through Congress would allocate $45 billion for “adult alien detention capacity and family residential centers.”

The U.S. government signed a $1 billion, 15-year contract in February with GEO Group to run Delaney Hall.