Advocates Sounded The Alarm Over Delaney Hall For Over One Year

Gov. Mikie Sherrill shared four requests for the Department of Homeland Security at a Saturday press conference: restore visitations for families with loved ones at Delaney Hall, provide medical care for detainees, give detainees a “meaningful chance” to review their cases and stop “pressuring” detainees to sign deportation documents.

But these requests don’t originate from Sherrill’s office, and to understand where they came from is to understand why Delaney Hall is a national story—not just a New Jersey one.

When news broke that a hunger and labor strike was happening inside the facility on May 22, families and advocates were quick to organize outside of the facility because they’ve been outside of the facility for over the past year.

Delaney Hall was the first immigrant detention center to open under President Donald Trump’s second term, and Newark, where it sits, was also the site of some of the first raids that happened in January 2025.

Immigrant rights advocates were quick to sound the alarm about what these actions would mean for the expansion of Trump’s mass deportation policies. Within days of opening the facility, Newark Mayor Ras Baraka was arrested by immigration officials when he attempted to go inside the facility—and Congresswoman LaMonica McIver still faces federal charges stemming from her oversight visit that same day. One month later, what followed were protests both inside and outside the facility over alleged poor conditions (note: Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials deny these claims).

Fast forward to today, four requests have been shared by detainees inside the facility, their family members outside,and from advocates who have been on the ground. Those were the same requests that Sherrill shared at her Saturday press conference.

And now hunger strikes are being replicated across the country at other immigrant detention centers: because what’s happening inside and outside Delaney Hall is built from a momentum from not just this past week alone, but for several years.

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