For more than century, May Day – or International Workers’ Day – has inspired action and mobilization for social justice movements.
The observance was born out of the Haymarket Affair of 1886, when workers in Chicago went on strike to demand an eight-hour workday. Confrontations with police resulted in countless injuries and hundreds of arrests, including eight leaders of the labor movement. The ensuing criminal convictions of the “Haymarket Eight” – notably without substantial evidence – galvanized the push for labor rights, propelled by the advocacy of workers and immigrants.
Now recognized across the globe, the first day of May marks a crucial time for workers to organize and continue advocating for the rights they have historically been denied.
In recent decades, May Day has also elevated the need to protect and expand immigrants’ rights – a call that remains vitally important as people across the country face increasing threats of President Trump’s mass detention and deportation agenda.
Though New Jersey has made important progress in defending immigrants’ rights in recent years, our state is not immune to the harms brought by the Trump administration and an immigration system that deprioritizes humanity. In 2025, ICE detained 8,300 individuals in New Jersey – a threefold increase over 2024.
Here in New Jersey, 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. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has also purchased a warehouse in Roxbury, NJ as the site for another detention center and is currently exploring detaining people at Fort Dix and another facility in Trenton. The Trump administration’s morally repugnant and, oftentimes, unlawful immigration policies and rhetoric are actively harming our families, friends, and neighbors – separating people from their families, violating their constitutional rights, spurring fear, and creating fewer safe communities for everyone.
The ACLU-NJ is committed to advancing and protecting rights for all New Jerseyans, and this May Day is no different. We are urging Gov. Sherrill and the Legislature to allocate more resources in the FY27 budget for the Detention and Deportation Defense Initiative (DDDI), which provides much-needed legal representation to hundreds of low-income detained people who are routinely denied access to due process within the federal immigration system. At current funding levels – and given the quadrupling of detention capacity in New Jersey – DDDI is only able to offer full representation to 18 percent of those seeking assistance. Insufficient funding means that hundreds, if not thousands, of New Jerseyans have severely limited resources to fight their deportation case, obtain release from immigration detention, and return to their families and communities.
Tell your state lawmakers: New Jersey must ensure universal representation by increasing funding for the Detention and Deportation Defense Initiative to $20 million to meet the increased demand for and cost of legal services.
It’s past time for New Jersey to end its participation in the federal detention and deportation machine and support immigrant families and working communities across our state. Every person in the United States deserves to live, work, and learn with safety, opportunity, and freedom in the place they call home.
Have you witnessed unlawful conduct by Immigration and Customs Enforcement? We want to know about it. Use our form to report unlawful conduct by federal immigration agents in New Jersey.
