Less than a month after its opening, a controversial migrant detention center operated by a private company has been the site of protests, violence, and escapes, according to sources on Friday.
Shortly after Donald Trump’s inauguration, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) signed a billion-dollar, 15-year contract with outsourcing giant Geo Group. The agreement aimed to convert an industrial estate near Newark Liberty International Airport in Newark, New Jersey, into a 1,000-bed detention facility.
In May, the center, named Delaney Hall, began admitting migrants arrested by ICE and awaiting deportation, despite opposition from local residents and politicians.
According to Mustafa Cetin, a lawyer representing an asylum seeker held at the center, detainees at Delaney Hall initiated a protest against detention conditions late Thursday.
“I have talked to my client yesterday and he told me that roughly 50 detainees were protesting against their conditions,” Cetin informed AFP.
“They were getting aggressive and it turned violent.”
Cetin criticized both the Geo Group and ICE for their management, citing “a lack of planning and accountability.”
US media reports and footage circulated late Thursday showed protestors attempting to obstruct an ICE van in front of Delaney Hall and clashing with police.
Meanwhile, a senior official with the US Department of Homeland Security confirmed to AFP on Friday that four detainees “had escaped” from the center the previous night.
“Additional law enforcement partners have been brought in to find these escapees,” the official stated.
Newark’s mayor, Democrat Ras Baraka, expressed his concern on Friday regarding reports of incidents at Delaney Hall, “ranging from withholding food and poor treatment, to uprising and escaped detainees.”
“This is why city officials and our congressional delegation need to be allowed entry to observe and monitor, and why private prisons pose a very real problem to our state and its constitution,” he said in a statement.
The detention center has emerged as one of the latest points of contention in the Democratic Party’s opposition to Trump’s crackdown on what he refers to as an “invasion” of undocumented migrants.
Mayor Baraka himself was arrested and briefly detained last month after attempting to enter the detention center, which is heavily guarded by ICE agents and security personnel.
Following the dispute between elected officials and federal agents, Democratic Congresswoman LaMonica McIver was also charged with assaulting law enforcement officers, an accusation she has dismissed as “purely political.”
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