New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill announced Friday that state police will be taking control of peacekeeping operations outside Delaney Hall, a detention center in Newark, N.J., operated by Immigration and Customs Enforcement that has been the site of violent clashes between protesters and federal officers over the past week.
Sherrill also said that she would establish a “peaceful protected protest zone” near the facility to prevent further violence.
“It has grown unsafe and that is completely unacceptable,” she said. “We know what ICE has done in other states and we know that American citizens lost their lives. I refuse to let that happen in New Jersey. We all need to do everything we can to cool things down now.”
Sherrill’s announcement comes after days of unrest in the streets outside the facility, as demonstrators protest allegedly “inhumane” conditions detainees have been subjected to. More than a dozen protesters have been arrested on accusations of assaulting federal officers. Footage from the incidents shows demonstrators being pepper sprayed, shoved and beaten by ICE agents. Sherrill said part of her decision to have state authorities intervene was to prevent ICE from having the “pretext” to expand its operations in the state.
Sherrill and many other New Jersey Democrats have called for the closure of Delaney Hall, which Sen. Cory Booker described on Thursday as a “moral stain on our nation.”
What is Delaney Hall?
Delaney Hall is one of hundreds of ICE detention centers across the country where people who have been arrested by the agency are held while they are processed for potential deportation. It has more than 1,000 available beds, making it the largest ICE detention facility on the East Coast.
Delaney Hall is owned and operated by the private prison company GEO Group, which received a 15-year, $1 billion contract from the federal government in early 2025 to reopen the previously dormant facility as an immigrant detention center. It was the first new detention center to open during President Trump’s second term as his administration moved to rapidly expand its detention capacity in order to carry out his mass deportation agenda.
The facility is just a few blocks away from Newark Liberty International Airport, a location that ICE says “streamlines logistics, and helps facilitate the timely processing of individuals in our custody.”
Why are people protesting?
Community advocates and elected officials have alleged that detainees within Delaney Hall are being housed in “inhumane” conditions.
In a statement on Tuesday, Newark Mayor Ras Baraka accused GEO Group of “serious humanitarian and constitutional violations” based on letters from detainees inside the facility.
“The letters describe alarming health conditions, including widespread illness, flu outbreaks, and the denial of necessary medical treatment for chronic and life-threatening conditions such as HIV, cancer, diabetes, and heart disease,” it continued. “Detainees also report inadequate and poor-quality food, compounding these dangerous and inhumane conditions.”
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin has denied the accusations that detainees are being mistreated, telling Fox News on Thursday that they are being provided “a safe place to stay, and food, and a place to sleep.” He characterized criticism of the conditions inside Delaney Hall as “political theater.”
DHS also denied reports that some detainees inside the facility have been on a hunger strike in protest of the conditions.
Several elected Democrats have accused ICE of refusing to allow state officials to do full inspections of the facility to verify competing claims about the conditions there.
“If conditions are really as good as you’re claiming, then let my health inspectors do their jobs,” Sherrill wrote on X on Thursday.
What has happened at the protests?
ICE agents and federal agents secure the entrance to Delaney Hall as demonstrators remain gathered outside on May 29.
Anti-ICE demonstrators have been gathering outside Delaney Hall for the past several days. At times, the protests have escalated into violent clashes between immigration officers and demonstrators.
Videos of the incidents show ICE officers shoving protesters, shooting them with pepper spray and hitting some with their batons in an effort to disperse the crowd. On Sunday, New Jersey’s other senator, Andy Kim, said he had personally been hit by pepper spray while trying to “prevent even more serious clashes.”
DHS told a local news outlet that its officers have used “the minimum amount of force to safely deescalate” the protests. Mullin has accused the “rioters” of biting, kicking and punching enforcement officers. A total of 15 demonstrators were arrested between Wednesday and Thursday nights, he said.
Who is being held in Delaney Hall?
In a statement earlier this week, DHS blasted Democrats for “spreading smears” about the facility and not cooperating as it attempts to “remove the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens.” The department highlighted over a dozen immigrants who it said were arrested in New Jersey with criminal histories that include assault, drug trafficking, sex crimes and homicide — but did not explicitly say they were being held at Delaney Hall.
ICE’s critics say those individuals do not represent the majority of the people currently being held in the facility. According to a recent analysis of ICE data, 87% of the detainees at Delaney Hall have no criminal record and a similar share are classified as “low” security risks.
Why is DHS threatening to shut down international flights?
On Thursday, Mullin told Fox News that he may order Customs and Border Protection to stop processing international travelers at airports in so-called sanctuary cities where local law enforcement “won’t help” break up protests that hinder ICE operations.
Without CBP present, anyone arriving on an international flight “won’t be permitted into the United States,” he said.
There is no formal definition of what a sanctuary city is, but last year, the federal government released a list of 18 cities that it “identified as having policies, laws, or regulations that impede enforcement of federal immigration laws.” Many are home to some of the nation’s busiest international airports, including New York, Los Angeles and Chicago.
Travel industry groups have warned that Mullin’s proposal would cause “unnecessary chaos throughout the nation’s air transportation system” right at the start of peak summer travel season.
The three major airports in the New York City area, including Newark, processed more than 700,000 incoming travelers per month last summer, according to CBP data. Los Angeles International Airport processed more than 1 million arrivals per month during the same period.
