Some 300 detainees launched a hunger and labor strike on Friday in protest of the conditions at the ICE jail.
By Shireen Akram-Boshar ,
May 26, 2026
ICE agents and pro-immigration activists face off outside the Delaney Hall migrant detention center on May 25, 2026 in Newark, New Jersey. Detained immigrants have been on a hunger strike to protest poor food and medical conditions, and immigration activists tried to prevent ICE agents from transferring hunger striking prisoners.
Andrew Lichtenstein / Corbis via Getty Images
Protests erupted on Sunday night outside of the Delaney Hall immigrant jail in Newark, New Jersey, when Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) moved to transfer a strike leader from the jail.
Some 300 detainees launched a hunger and labor strike on Friday in protest of the conditions at the ICE jail. On Sunday, activists and family members learned that the jail was preparing to move Martin Soto, one of the detainees who had announced the strike.
Gabriela Soto, Martin’s wife, saw ICE agents loading Martin into a van, and ran to block the van that held her husband from leaving the site. Other demonstrators joined in blocking the van from leaving the facility, and forced it back to the detention facility. Protestors formed a blockade for hours to prevent Martin Soto from being moved out of the site
“Free Martin!” the protestors chanted. “Free them all!”
Later, around 1 am on Monday, ICE agents began to move a caravan of vehicles out of the facility, and protestors again attempted to block the vehicles from leaving. ICE agents then shoved aside protestors, pushing them against the sidewalk and against cars, and pepper sprayed at least one protestor.
Immigrant Children Lead Uprising at Texas Detention Center
The immigrant jail, where many children are detained, has “horrible” conditions, including “putrid” drinking water. By Chris Walker , Truthout January 26, 2026
A Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spokesperson announced on Monday that after “ICE successfully dispersed approximately 70 agitators” it succeeded in transferring Martin to another facility.
Since the start of the hunger strike, family members and supporters have gathered outside of the detention center. Among others, a 10-year-old child spoke about her father, who is currently being imprisoned in the facility by ICE.
On Friday, Gabriela Soto translated calls from prisoners, including her husband Martin, who said, “We deal with racism, with bad conditions, with guards that do not help us…. It gets worse all the time, and they don’t treat us like people.”
The guards soon cut access to the detainees’ phones so that these calls could not continue.
People being imprisoned at Delaney began a hunger strike after signing two letters describing their circumstances and conditions.
“We feel vulnerable and, in a way, kidnapped — detained without justification — not to mention that we are being tortured physically and psychologically due to the poor food resources provided in these detention centers,” they wrote. “Families are being destroyed and separated.”
“We have seen judges in this detention center who are ready to carry out deportations and mass expulsions without properly reviewing cases,” they went on. “We live with anguish and fear of appearing in court.”
One participant in the labor and hunger strike wrote in a letter describing the conditions of the jail:
We have people sleeping on the floor for not being processed quick enough. They neglect medications for people who are in dire need of it. All of our bonds are denied and they are telling us to file habeas corpus for everyone that is in here, they constantly tell us we are a danger to society. The same judge that denies your bond is the same judge that reviews our immigration court cases and that is not fair.
Delaney opened as an ICE jail in May 2025 in a $1 billion, 15-year contract between private prison contractor GEO Group and ICE. It is the largest ICE facility on the East Coast and has faced pushback since the announcement of its opening.
New Jersey Democratic Sen. Andy Kim visited the detention center Saturday, and wrote on X that he saw inside it a “high school student crying and saying she just wanted to graduate senior year”; a woman “who had a miscarriage in the detention facility” and was “left to manage [it] all on her own”; and a “carton with the milk inside congealed solid.”
On Monday, Kim returned to the site, and said that he was pepper sprayed. “Instead of engaging with me and others about the poor conditions, ICE sent in an armored vehicle and a line of armed agents that only poured gasoline on the fire,” he wrote on X. Kim described ICE agents tackling and restraining protestors and firing pepper balls and spray into the crowd.
On Tuesday morning, the protest continued, and video footage from outside Delaney once again shows ICE agents detaining and dragging protestors.
Leqaa Kordia — a Palestinian from East Jerusalem who was arrested in Newark when meeting with immigration officials about her status and then detained for over a year in ICE jails for her Palestine activism — wrote a statement in solidarity with the Delaney hunger strikers.
“When you choose hunger over submission, you’re doing something that terrifies ICE,” she wrote on Monday. “You are proving that even when they break your bodies, they can’t break your will. You are proving that a person stripped of freedom can’t be stripped of dignity.”
“I know the conditions you’re enduring,” she went on. “The rotten food. The medical neglect. The psychological torture of indefinite limbo. I know what it took for you to look at that tray of slop and say: No more. Not until I’m free.”
Protests erupted on Sunday night outside of the Delaney Hall immigrant jail in Newark, New Jersey, when Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) moved to transfer a strike leader from the jail.
Some 300 detainees launched a hunger and labor strike on Friday in protest of the conditions at the ICE jail. On Sunday, activists and family members learned that the jail was preparing to move Martin Soto, one of the detainees who had announced the strike.
Gabriela Soto, Martin’s wife, saw ICE agents loading Martin into a van, and ran to block the van that held her husband from leaving the site. Other demonstrators joined in blocking the van from leaving the facility, and forced it back to the detention facility. Protestors formed a blockade for hours to prevent Martin Soto from being moved out of the site
“Free Martin!” the protestors chanted. “Free them all!”
Later, around 1 am on Monday, ICE agents began to move a caravan of vehicles out of the facility, and protestors again attempted to block the vehicles from leaving. ICE agents then shoved aside protestors, pushing them against the sidewalk and against cars, and pepper sprayed at least one protestor.
Immigrant Children Lead Uprising at Texas Detention Center
The immigrant jail, where many children are detained, has “horrible” conditions, including “putrid” drinking water. By Chris Walker , Truthout January 26, 2026
A Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spokesperson announced on Monday that after “ICE successfully dispersed approximately 70 agitators” it succeeded in transferring Martin to another facility.
Since the start of the hunger strike, family members and supporters have gathered outside of the detention center. Among others, a 10-year-old child spoke about her father, who is currently being imprisoned in the facility by ICE.
On Friday, Gabriela Soto translated calls from prisoners, including her husband Martin, who said, “We deal with racism, with bad conditions, with guards that do not help us…. It gets worse all the time, and they don’t treat us like people.”
The guards soon cut access to the detainees’ phones so that these calls could not continue.
People being imprisoned at Delaney began a hunger strike after signing two letters describing their circumstances and conditions.
“We feel vulnerable and, in a way, kidnapped — detained without justification — not to mention that we are being tortured physically and psychologically due to the poor food resources provided in these detention centers,” they wrote. “Families are being destroyed and separated.”
“We have seen judges in this detention center who are ready to carry out deportations and mass expulsions without properly reviewing cases,” they went on. “We live with anguish and fear of appearing in court.”
One participant in the labor and hunger strike wrote in a letter describing the conditions of the jail:
We have people sleeping on the floor for not being processed quick enough. They neglect medications for people who are in dire need of it. All of our bonds are denied and they are telling us to file habeas corpus for everyone that is in here, they constantly tell us we are a danger to society. The same judge that denies your bond is the same judge that reviews our immigration court cases and that is not fair.
Delaney opened as an ICE jail in May 2025 in a $1 billion, 15-year contract between private prison contractor GEO Group and ICE. It is the largest ICE facility on the East Coast and has faced pushback since the announcement of its opening.
New Jersey Democratic Sen. Andy Kim visited the detention center Saturday, and wrote on X that he saw inside it a “high school student crying and saying she just wanted to graduate senior year”; a woman “who had a miscarriage in the detention facility” and was “left to manage [it] all on her own”; and a “carton with the milk inside congealed solid.”
On Monday, Kim returned to the site, and said that he was pepper sprayed. “Instead of engaging with me and others about the poor conditions, ICE sent in an armored vehicle and a line of armed agents that only poured gasoline on the fire,” he wrote on X. Kim described ICE agents tackling and restraining protestors and firing pepper balls and spray into the crowd.
On Tuesday morning, the protest continued, and video footage from outside Delaney once again shows ICE agents detaining and dragging protestors.
Leqaa Kordia — a Palestinian from East Jerusalem who was arrested in Newark when meeting with immigration officials about her status and then detained for over a year in ICE jails for her Palestine activism — wrote a statement in solidarity with the Delaney hunger strikers.
“When you choose hunger over submission, you’re doing something that terrifies ICE,” she wrote on Monday. “You are proving that even when they break your bodies, they can’t break your will. You are proving that a person stripped of freedom can’t be stripped of dignity.”
“I know the conditions you’re enduring,” she went on. “The rotten food. The medical neglect. The psychological torture of indefinite limbo. I know what it took for you to look at that tray of slop and say: No more. Not until I’m free.”
‘What I Witnessed and Experienced Today Was Shameful,‘ Says US Senator Pepper Sprayed by ICE
Sen. Andy Kim of New Jersey said federal immigration agents “poured gasoline on the fire” as protesters condemned appalling conditions inside the Delaney Hall detention facility.
US Sen. Andy Kim (D-NJ) joins immigrant rights activists at a protest outside the Delaney Hall migrant detention center on May 25, 2026 in Newark, New Jersey.
(Photo by Andrew Lichtenstein/Corbis via Getty Images)
Jake Johnson
May 26, 2026
Sen. Andy Kim of New Jersey said federal immigration agents “poured gasoline on the fire” as protesters condemned appalling conditions inside the Delaney Hall detention facility.
US Sen. Andy Kim (D-NJ) joins immigrant rights activists at a protest outside the Delaney Hall migrant detention center on May 25, 2026 in Newark, New Jersey.
(Photo by Andrew Lichtenstein/Corbis via Getty Images)
Jake Johnson
May 26, 2026
COMMON DREAMS
A sitting US senator was pepper sprayed by federal immigration agents on Monday during a demonstration outside of the notorious Delaney Hall detention center in Newark, New Jersey, where migrants are engaged in a hunger strike to highlight deplorable conditions inside the facility and demand their release.
Sen. Andy Kim (D-NJ) said he rushed to the migrant detention center—which was reopened by the Trump administration last year—after learning of the hunger strike, which began late last week. Following Monday’s protest, Kim wrote on social media that he saw “chaos” and “more of the same lawlessness we’ve see elsewhere around the country,” alluding to horrific—and sometimes deadly—abuses by Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agents (ICE) in Minnesota, Georgia, Texas, and elsewhere.
“Instead of engaging with me and others about the poor conditions, ICE sent in an armored vehicle and a line of armed agents that only poured gasoline on the fire. Civilians were tackled and restrained, and agents fired pepper balls and spray into the crowd,” said Kim. “Our country deserves accountability. Our country deserves the humane treatment of every person here. In fact, our Constitution demands this. What I witnessed and experienced today was shameful.”
“Delaney Hall is a failure; it’s this administration’s failure,” Kim added. “The only way to make this right for our communities is to shut it down and make sure the failures we’ve seen never happen again.”
NJ.com reported that Kim, who was visiting the facility along with other New Jersey representatives including Democratic Gov. Mikie Sherrill, “initially tried to broker a temporary agreement between the demonstrators and federal agents, in which the agents would scale back tactical teams and immigrant advocates could inspect cars leaving the facility to see if detainees were inside.”
Demonstrators had earlier expressed concern that ICE was planning to secretly transfer hunger strike participants to other detention facilities.
“But in the meantime, agents began pushing the crowd backward, firing less-lethal rounds containing an irritant toward the protesters and making several arrests,” NJ.com continued. “At times, Kim stepped between the protestors and agents putting his arms up in a ‘stop’ motion as the scene grew chaotic. Later, Kim was among those who received first aid after being exposed to pepper spray.”
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which oversees ICE, issued a statement characterizing protesters as “dangerous rioters” and claiming that “no individuals were directly struck by pepper ball projectiles.”
Delaney Hall is run by the private prison corporation GEO Group under a $1 billion, 15-year contract with ICE.
The families of people detained at Delaney Hall have decried “dangerous conditions” inside the facility, alleging “medical neglect, lack of air conditioning, and lack of food—including rotten and spoiled meals.” The ACLU of New Jersey noted earlier this year that “when food is provided—as it is not often supplied—people have reported that it is frozen or otherwise inedible, in small portions, and distributed at odd hours, which is particularly harmful for people who are diabetic and trying to maintain a stable blood sugar level.”
After seeing the inside of the facility over the weekend, Kim wrote that “our government should focus on helping Americans afford their lives, not lock people up in for-profit detention centers where corporations like Geo Group and CoreCivic make billions.”
“No profiting off of human misery,” Kim added.
A sitting US senator was pepper sprayed by federal immigration agents on Monday during a demonstration outside of the notorious Delaney Hall detention center in Newark, New Jersey, where migrants are engaged in a hunger strike to highlight deplorable conditions inside the facility and demand their release.
Sen. Andy Kim (D-NJ) said he rushed to the migrant detention center—which was reopened by the Trump administration last year—after learning of the hunger strike, which began late last week. Following Monday’s protest, Kim wrote on social media that he saw “chaos” and “more of the same lawlessness we’ve see elsewhere around the country,” alluding to horrific—and sometimes deadly—abuses by Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agents (ICE) in Minnesota, Georgia, Texas, and elsewhere.
“Instead of engaging with me and others about the poor conditions, ICE sent in an armored vehicle and a line of armed agents that only poured gasoline on the fire. Civilians were tackled and restrained, and agents fired pepper balls and spray into the crowd,” said Kim. “Our country deserves accountability. Our country deserves the humane treatment of every person here. In fact, our Constitution demands this. What I witnessed and experienced today was shameful.”
“Delaney Hall is a failure; it’s this administration’s failure,” Kim added. “The only way to make this right for our communities is to shut it down and make sure the failures we’ve seen never happen again.”
NJ.com reported that Kim, who was visiting the facility along with other New Jersey representatives including Democratic Gov. Mikie Sherrill, “initially tried to broker a temporary agreement between the demonstrators and federal agents, in which the agents would scale back tactical teams and immigrant advocates could inspect cars leaving the facility to see if detainees were inside.”
Demonstrators had earlier expressed concern that ICE was planning to secretly transfer hunger strike participants to other detention facilities.
“But in the meantime, agents began pushing the crowd backward, firing less-lethal rounds containing an irritant toward the protesters and making several arrests,” NJ.com continued. “At times, Kim stepped between the protestors and agents putting his arms up in a ‘stop’ motion as the scene grew chaotic. Later, Kim was among those who received first aid after being exposed to pepper spray.”
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which oversees ICE, issued a statement characterizing protesters as “dangerous rioters” and claiming that “no individuals were directly struck by pepper ball projectiles.”
Delaney Hall is run by the private prison corporation GEO Group under a $1 billion, 15-year contract with ICE.
The families of people detained at Delaney Hall have decried “dangerous conditions” inside the facility, alleging “medical neglect, lack of air conditioning, and lack of food—including rotten and spoiled meals.” The ACLU of New Jersey noted earlier this year that “when food is provided—as it is not often supplied—people have reported that it is frozen or otherwise inedible, in small portions, and distributed at odd hours, which is particularly harmful for people who are diabetic and trying to maintain a stable blood sugar level.”
After seeing the inside of the facility over the weekend, Kim wrote that “our government should focus on helping Americans afford their lives, not lock people up in for-profit detention centers where corporations like Geo Group and CoreCivic make billions.”
“No profiting off of human misery,” Kim added.
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