Migrant detainees separated from loved ones amid clashes between ICE agents, protesters

NEWARK — Family members of detainees at migrant jail Delaney Hall say they’ve been unable to visit their loved ones nearly a week after inmates said they launched a hunger strike to protest conditions.

And now those on the outside fear for the prisoners’ safety after staff used pepper spray on detainees Thursday, sending four people to the hospital. The jail, located in an industrial section of the state’s largest city, has been the focus of unrest since detainees announced their hunger strike last week.

“They need to let us in. They’re preventing us from visiting our families,” said Hazel Chavez, 20, whose father has been inside the Newark detention center for nearly three months. “It’s hard to go through this. He’s the only one I have.”

Chavez regularly saw her father three to four times a week since he was arrested in March near a Long Branch Home Depot. But now she’s been limited to communicating with him only by phone, and said she last spoke to him Thursday when he told her that jail guards had pepper-sprayed people in his unit.

“My dad is sick, he’s coughing. Tear gas can only make it worse,” she said. “It’s hard imagining what he’s going through.”

Detainees at Delaney Hall, a 1,000-bed jail owned by Geo Group, said they launched a hunger and labor strike to protest poor conditions. Democratic members of Congress who have toured the facility in recent days confirmed the prisoners’ stories, but Trump administration officials call the claims lies.

Daily protests outside the jail have regularly become violent as U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents clash with protesters. Gov. Mikie Sherill (D) said the jail should be shut down.

Advocates, family members, and members of Congress said a confrontation occurred between detainees and Geo Group staff on Thursday afternoon. Democratic Reps. Analilia Mejia, Rob Menendez, and Frank Pallone entered the jail in the evening to try to speak to detainees, but said they were not allowed in Unit 2 because it remained under lockdown.

Four ambulances left the facility throughout Thursday to take detainees to University Hospital in Newark.

Menendez said the injuries reported to him included a fractured hand, a head injury, and an abnormal EKG. Other detainees said they were having trouble breathing and had irritation in their eyes, he said.

Menendez said it’s not clear what sparked the clashes between jail guards and detainees. He, Mejia, and Pallone also expressed concerns about nearly a dozen women who were transferred from Delaney Hall to a Louisiana detention facility in the last week, saying they believed it was a “direct action taken given all the activity over the weekend with the hunger strike.”

Menendez said it’s clear Geo Group is trying to break the hunger strike inside.

Christopher Ferreira, a Geo Group spokesman, said jail staff “responded to a physical altercation involving detainees” on Thursday. Following the incident, affected detainees were “promptly evaluated by on-site medical personnel and were cleared with no serious injuries,” Ferreira said.

“In accordance with established policies and protocols approved by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, staff implemented appropriate response and control measures to safely resolve the situation, including the limited use of chemical agents. The safety and well-being of those in our care and our staff is our top priority, and any such response is carried out in strict adherence to federal standards and comprehensive training,” he said.

Menendez said he’s concerned about the lack of contact detainees have with their loved ones, noting that they have limited access to tablets, which are also used for video calls.

After his visit Thursday, he said Geo Group is looking to change visitation requirements for detainees. A new rule will limit detainees to eight approved visitors, requiring them to fill out a form with their visitors’ full names, birth dates, and addresses.

“They’re already saying no visitation, and now they’re forcing people to give eight names. They have to be preapproved for visits,” he said. “That means like church members can’t come, it’s things like that.”

The protesters who have gathered daily along Doremus Avenue have yelled at ICE agents stationed outside the back entrance, and the more violent clashes at night have led to some arrests. On Monday, Sen. Andy Kim (D) was pepper-sprayed during a melee while attempting to de-escalate tensions between ICE agents and protesters. Elected officials from both New Jersey and New York have visited Delaney Hall in recent days, including Rep. LaMonica McIver, Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, and New York Democrat Rep. Jerry Nadler.

Sherrill was also there Monday, but was not allowed into the facility (federal elected officials are mandated access, but state officials aren’t). State health officials conducted a partial inspection of the facility Thursday morning, but they were denied full access, Sherrill said.

“As I’ve said repeatedly, refusing to provide full access raises serious questions about what ICE is trying to hide from public view,” she said in a statement, adding the state will “review and share” the findings from Thursday.

U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, who oversees ICE, confirmed the state health inspection.

ICE “is regularly audited and inspected by external agencies to ensure that all ICE facilities comply with performance-based national detention standards,” he said on social media. “All detainees are provided with proper meals, quality water, blankets, medical treatment, and have opportunities to communicate with their family members and lawyers.”

Tatiana Barrera said her husband, who is a Delaney Hall detainee, called her shortly after the Thursday incident occurred in his unit. He told her that workers were “hitting them, putting pepper spray in their eyes, and a lot of them were burnt in their eyes and necks.”

Barerra, who has two young children, said she’s come multiple times to visit her husband over the past week, but jail workers won’t let her in.

“My anxiety is kicking up right now because I don’t know if he’s OK,” she said. “It’s very frustrating that I can’t visually see that he’s OK, especially with what happened today.”

Gabriela Fuentes shared a similar story. She described a phone call with her husband just before the fights broke out Thursday, and the call dropped after he told her workers were pepper-spraying people in the rooms. She said she received another call from him later in the afternoon; he said milk was being poured on detainees who suffered burns from the sprays.

She said she’s been married to her husband for 10 years and they have two children, a son who turns 2 years old Friday and a daughter with autism who is worried her dad has abandoned them because he “doesn’t sleep at home.”

When they came to the facility for a visit, she said she told them the jail is where their dad works now.

“That’s the explanation, the easiest explanation I can give her, because I don’t know how to explain, ‘Yeah, your father’s detained by ICE,’” she added.

The last time she was able to visit inside was Saturday, she said, and guards have told her not to bother coming this weekend because visitation remains suspended.

Luisa Duarte worries that visitation won’t return until the protests outside cease. Speaking near a tent outside the facility reserved for family members of detainees, she described her concerns for her partner, who needs regular medication for hypertension, diabetes, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol. In the two weeks since he’s been detained at Delaney Hall, he’s only received some of his medication, and only a couple of times, she said.

She’s concerned that the staff will “let him die.”

“I’m worried everything going on out here is making it worse for everyone inside,” she said. “All these families waiting out here, we’re told the same thing: no visitation until further notice.”