Until all Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention centers across the country are closed, and every family is reunited, we must continue to advocate for the end of immigration detention.
Last month, Senator Cory Booker reintroduced the Dignity for Detained Immigrants Act, supported by Representatives LaMonica McIver and Rob Menendez. This bill would end the use of private, for-profit detention facilities, and increase federal oversight, accountability, and transparency of the immigration detention system.
“We’re grateful for Sen. Booker’s leadership in introducing the Dignity for Detained Immigrants Act,” said ACLU-NJ Executive Director Amol Sinha. “With each day under the Trump administration, it becomes clearer that ICE is a lawless, rogue agency designed to violently detain and deport people while imposing harm and cruelty. This mass detention system cannot be reformed – it is antithetical to basic human decency, the rule of law, and the spirit of our nation’s founding.”
There are two immigration detention facilities in New Jersey: the Elizabeth Detention Center and Delaney Hall in Newark. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is also exploring the use of a warehouse in Roxbury, NJ, and others around the country to create 80,000 new immigration detention beds, as well as the use of the Fort Dix military base.
Last year, Delaney Hall, one of the largest detention facilities on the East Coast, opened in Newark, which multiplied the detention capacity in New Jersey four times over. Since the announcement of its opening, community advocates have rallied against the Trump administration’s plans to expand immigration detention in New Jersey and across the country.
Immigrant detention harms families and communities, and the conditions at Delaney Hall remain abhorrent. These conditions are endemic to immigration detention. Delaney Hall is just another example, and an atrocious one, of the long-standing cruelty of immigration detention and of the increasingly unsafe and abusive nature of the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement practices.
For those being detained, transfers without warning, reason, or notification to families occur routinely. Some people are transferred over thousands of miles away from home, all the while handcuffed and shackled.
Every day, dozens of people are kidnapped and disappeared in New Jersey. ICE’s detainee locator is not updated in a timely manner, provoking panic and fear of deportation for families.
People are regularly denied treatment for significant health issues and are not receiving prescribed medication or treatment for chronic conditions. They are being forced to pay for basic hygiene items, which are either not supplied or not distributed in a timely manner.
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.
Even though visiting hours are designated by unit number at Delaney Hall, guards refuse to share what unit people are being held in. Visiting times range from one hour down to as little as 10 minutes – and that’s if visitors are allowed at all.
Delaney Hall makes visitors stand outside in a driveway for hours on end, no matter the weather conditions, knowing all the while that they may ultimately be denied entry. Volunteers have spent considerable time reaching out to legislators and others for resources such as a bus, so that visitors waiting outside could access a warm, dry place during extreme weather conditions. They are still waiting for a response, and as we continue to face low temperatures and winter storms, this resource is imperative for the safety of visitors and volunteers.
In sum, Delaney Hall is dangerous for those being detained, their loved ones, and all who care about immigrants’ rights, fundamental constitutional freedoms, and democracy. Yet in the face of these cruel conditions, community members and families have united in fierce opposition to Delaney Hall’s existence and the abuse of human beings therein.
New Jerseyans have remained firm in their demands that Delaney Hall, Elizabeth Detention Center, and all immigration detention facilities must be closed to safeguard New Jersey families and communities across the country.
Our lawmakers must take action now. The ACLU-NJ calls on legislators to pass the Dignity for Detained Immigrants Act and to push forward comprehensive legislation to end cruel mass detention and deportation once and for all.
