Newark Imposes Curfew Near ICE Detention Center After Days of Clashes

Days of unrest outside the Delaney Hall immigration detention center in Newark, New Jersey, led Newark’s mayor to order a curfew around the facility, and by Monday arrests for violating it had begun, according to reports from NPR and PBS NewsHour.

Delaney Hall is a privately run, 1,000-bed facility used as an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center, PBS and NPR reported. NPR said it has been the site of intense protests since last month and that the demonstrations became increasingly violent in recent days. Over the weekend, PBS reported, demonstrators clashed with police, and federal and state officers used riot shields and tear gas.

Newark Mayor Ras Baraka issued an indefinite curfew around the facility, NPR said, and spoke with the network on Monday about where the situation goes from here. New Jersey’s attorney general said a group of people was arrested the night before for violating the curfew, PBS reported. A caption on an NPR photograph said New Jersey state authorities announced on May 29 that they were taking charge of security outside the facility after clashes between ICE agents and protesters.

The protests grew out of complaints about conditions inside. Family members of detainees told NPR that a hunger and labor strike has begun inside the facility over what they describe as poor living conditions and alleged human rights violations. One detainee’s wife told PBS that the food was spoiled and described worms in beans and expired cereal. “It’s because it’s rotten,” she said.

The Department of Homeland Security rejected the criticism. In a post on social media, the department said everyone held at the facility “broke the law” and that it does not “provide luxury accommodations,” PBS reported.

Political pressure has built on the other side. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and other Democrats have called for the facility to be closed, PBS reported.

The situation outside the building remains the immediate concern. State authorities have taken over perimeter security, the curfew is open-ended, and arrests have already begun. What happens inside, where relatives say a strike is under way, is harder to establish: the accounts in these reports come from detainees’ relatives on one side and the Department of Homeland Security’s public statement on the other.