May 19, 2026, 2:12 pm

McIver Returns to Delaney Hall in light of Detainee “S.O.S.” Letter

NEWARK, NJ —Yesterday, Congresswoman LaMonica McIver (NJ-10) returned to the ICE detention center at Delaney Hall to investigate claims made in a recent open letter from detainees. The congresswoman conducted an unannounced oversight visit with Reps. Rob Menendez (NJ-07) and Analilia Mejia (NJ-11), where she observed the conditions at the facility and spoke to detainees who gave additional details that built upon claims of abuse detailed in the letter. In a press conference following the visit, McIver, Menendez, and Mejia reported on the conditions. Excerpts of the press conference can be found here.

“Until the abuses end and they abolish ICE, I’m going to continue to show up here and do my job,” said McIver. “In an act of real bravery and obvious desperation, detainees wrote a letter about the conditions that they are facing here at Delaney Hall. Not enough food, no medical care, and conditions they call torture—conditions any of us would recognize as torture. After coming out of the facility, I can tell you that everything in the letter is 100% correct. ICE and DHS will lie and lie because the only thing that they care about is getting caught—which is why we do these unannounced oversight visits.”

“What we said over a year ago at Delaney Hall was that no one is safe in Trump’s America,” said Menendez. “We see that with every single visit when we see pastors, mothers, and disabled individuals being held here instead of the criminals the Trump Administration claimed it was targeting. All while ICE continues to try to break these people and steal their humanity. We won’t let them do this in the dark, and we will continue to shine light onto what is going on behind closed doors until we shut this facility down ...

https://www.insidernj.com/press-release/conditions-any-of-us-would-recognize-as-torture/

José Olivares in Newark, Richard Luscombe and Victoria Bekiempis
Tue 26 May 2026 18.11 EDT

Protests continued on Tuesday outside an immigration detention center in New Jersey where US senator Andy Kim said he was pepper-sprayed by federal agents the day before during a demonstrations against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) outside the facility.

Video posted on social media showed Kim, a Democrat representing New Jersey, receiving help from a volunteer on Monday, who is seen pouring water in his eyes outside Delaney Hall in Newark, where detainees have said they are staging a hunger strike against poor conditions and the denial of medical care ...

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/may/26/senator-pepper-sprayed-ice-facility-protest-new-jersey

Updated: May. 26, 2026, 5:24 p.m.
Published: May. 26, 2026, 2:14 p.m.

By Nick Moyle | NJ.com

U.S. Rep. Randy Fine (R-Fla.)s... has advocated for federal officers to take severe measures against protesters, and a bill he introduced last August would provide new legal protections for drivers who injure or kill people ...

https://www.nj.com/politics/2026/05/delaney-hall-protesters-formed-human-chains-this-gop-rep-wants-to-make-running-them-over-legal.html

By David Wildstein, May 25 2026 6:48 pm

U.S. Senator Andy Kim was pepper sprayed by ICE agents outside Newark’s Delaney Hall detention center on Memorial Day during chaotic clashes between protesters and federal agents outside the complex, and Gov. Mikie Sherrill was denied access to the facility.

The confrontation erupted after demonstrators gathered in support of detainees engaged in a hunger strike over alleged medical neglect and living conditions inside Delaney Hall, a 1,000-bed immigration privately-run detention facility that currently houses about 300 people.

Kim said he had difficulty breathing after federal agents deployed pepper spray into the crowd, as protesters alleged officers also used batons to disperse demonstrators blocking entrances to the facility. His state director, Paul Stuart Aronsohn, was also pepper sprayed

By Monday afternoon, Sherrill arrived at the facility alongside members of New Jersey’s congressional delegation, including Reps. Rob Menendez (D-Jersey City), Nellie Pou (D-North Haledon), LaMonica McIver (D-Newark), and Analilia Mejia (D-Glen Ridge), as well as Newark officials and immigration advocates. Federal officials denied the governor entry.

“My request for access to Delaney Hall was formally denied this morning, raising serious questions about what they are trying to hide from public view,” Sherrill stated ...

https://newjerseyglobe.com/immigration/kim-pepper-sprayed-sherrill-denied-access-at-delaney-hall/