Conditions at the Delaney Hall immigrant detention center will be the subject of a field hearing by Democrats on the U.S. House Committee on Homeland Security scheduled for Wednesday at Newark City Hall.
The 1:30 p.m. hearing is titled, “the Human Cost of Immigration Enforcement and Detention: Conditions and Oversight at Delaney Hall.”
Detainees and their families, immigrants’ rights advocates, and members of New Jersey’s House delegation who have been inside the ICE facility on congressional oversight tours have described a long list of substandard conditions.
The conditions they have described include a shortage of food that is often spoiled or otherwise inedible when it is available, faulty and unsanitary bathrooms, extreme heat and cold, lack of proper medical attention, frequent denial of visitation from family and lawyers, and pay of as little as $1 a day for cleaning and serving food. Men and women detainees have staged hunger and labor strikes since last month.
ICE and the facility’s owner have denied many of the assertions and one Republican lawmaker, U.S. Rep. Jeff Van Drew, also countered their allegations after a visit, saying the detainees are living better than half of America and about “90% of the world.”
The field hearing was announced Monday by the office of U.S. Rep. Lamonica McIver, D-10th Dist., a Homeland Security committee member who will be in attendance. McIver’s district includes Delaney Hall, located on an industrial stretch of Doremus Avenue, and owned and operated by the GEO Group of Boca Raton, Florida, under a 15-year, $1 billion contract with ICE.
McIver was visiting the facility for an oversight tour on May 9, 2025 when an altercation led to charges of assaulting and impeding a federal officer that are now pending against her.
The hearing will be chaired by the committee’s ranking Democrat, U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, who issued a statement on Monday.
“By every account, the conditions at Delaney Hall are deplorable and inhumane. The facility must be shut down,” Thompson stated. “Anyone in the federal government’s care must be treated humanely and must be provided proper medical care, sanitary conditions, and a safe environment. ICE is clearly failing at their job. With Congressional Republicans refusing to uphold their oversight responsibilities, it is incumbent on us to act.”
A spokesperson for the GEO Group referred a request for comment to ICE or its parent agency, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. ICE did not immediately respond to a request.
Van Drew issued a statement Monday calling the hearing as partisan grandstanding and reiterating what he said about conditions last month.
“Let’s call this what it is: political theater,” Van Drew stated. “I have been inside Delaney Hall. I saw it with my own eyes. The people pushing this narrative know better. They would rather put on a show than tell the truth.
“The facility has medical care, dental care, libraries, good food, recreation areas, and clean living conditions. It is not the horror story they are trying to sell to the public. If they were interested in facts, they would talk about what is actually happening inside the facility instead of repeating their own talking points. The American people deserve the truth.”
New Jersey’s two other Republican House members, Tom Kean Jr., R-7th Dist., and Chris Smith, R-4th Dist., did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Witnesses scheduled to testify at the hearing include Newark Mayor Ras J. Baraka; Viri Martinez, deputy director of strategy for the New Jersey Alliance for Immigrant Justice; Amol Sinha, executive director of the ACLU of New Jersey; and Adam Marshall, a U.S. Army Veteran arrested by ICE officers while protesting outside Delaney Hall on May 26.
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All of the witnesses are opposed to the facility’s operation, have criticized the mass detention of immigrants under President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown, or have decried conditions for detainees.
The charges against McIver stem from her attempt to prevent Baraka from being arrested by ICE officers on a trespassing charge that was quickly dropped.
Baraka’s administration is suing the GEO Group, asserting that it lacks a valid certificate of occupancy to operate Delaney Hall as a detention center. GEO has insisted that a CO it received for a operation remains valid.
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