Inside the Anti-ICE Protests at Delaney Hall

As federal agents increase the use of force at the facility, demonstrators are adopting new tactics.

An ICE agent sprays chemical irritants at protesters and media over the Memorial Day weekend.

(Adam Gray / Getty Images)

Since Memorial Day weekend, detainees at Delaney Hall in Newark, New Jersey, have been on a hunger and labor strike to protest conditions at the facility—including substandard medical care, poor food, uncompensated labor, and the detainment of the elderly, minors, and pregnant women. Outside, protesters have gathered every day in solidarity. Some chant and hold signs; others work to block ICE vehicles from entering and exiting the detention center.

Delaney Hall presents logistical challenges for demonstrators that weren’t in play at other ICE detention facilities that sparked mass protests. The Broadview facility in Chicago is in an industrial warehouse area, and the Whipple Building in Minnesota sits on a sprawling campus of federal buildings and parking lots. By contrast, Delaney Hall is on a four-lane thoroughfare. Trucks and buses drive by perilously close to protesters at all hours of the day and night.

As a result, this past week’s protests at Delaney Hall forced protesters to alter their tactics. As I covered the actions at Broadview, I dodged rubber bullets and faced down armed officers; at protests in Portlands, it was pepper balls. As I shadowed immigration raids in other cities, ICE and Border Patrol agents routinely used tear gas. At Delaney Hall, agents were armed with Tasers and the most potent pepper spray available.

I arrived at Delaney Hall on Tuesday, May 26. The protesters had set up barricades at one entrance to the facility, where employees of GEO group—the private contractor running the detention center—would come and go. At the other side, the driveway that the ICE vehicles mostly used, protesters linked arms and stood in the way. In response, the agents would rush into the crowd, brandishing Tasers, batons, and pepper spray.

Sometimes they’d come into the crowd to chase a specific person, but that didn’t mean they ignored everyone else. In one run-in, as I was filming agents chasing a protester and wrestling him to the ground, I got a full dose of pepper spray. Shortly after, agents chased a protester across the street and down to the train tracks that run parallel to the road. They tased him, pepper-sprayed him, and detained him. From that point forward, it seemed like at least one agent was always holding a Taser, ready to go.

When protesters attempted to block the ICE cars, they always cleared space for medical emergency vehicles. This soon became something of a ritual, since emergency vehicles were in steady demand. It was not long until every time one arrived ICE cars were close behind them, zooming through the path that protesters made for the ambulances.

Current Issue

Even with its superior firepower, the ICE contingent at Delaney Hall was clearly understaffed. Eventually, agents parked a row of DHS vehicles parallel to the line they held in in front of the detention facility entrance.

The next night, a set of talkative but violent agents were at the end of the line, where members of the press had gathered. A few protesters had decided to block the road and keep the trucks from their routes, but they were a small minority. Soon, an argument ensued. As the protesters fought one another, the agents looked on and joked among themselves that the fracas wasn’t their problem.

“That wasn’t your stance in Minneapolis,” I said. Outside of the Whipple Building, agents had regularly broken up fights between left-wing activists and right-wing ICE supporters. “What changed?”

Instead of answering, they asked me what Minneapolis had been like (short answer: cold). They went on to explain that they also had been stationed there. I told them I had been covering ICE and the Border Patrol since August, and this was the most violent I had yet seen them be. “What about Minnesota?” they asked.

Pepper balls and tear gas were not a big deal, I told them—but the pepper spray was horrible. And it seemed likely to me that someone was going to get run over by an 18-wheeler.

An officer replied that tear-gassing was bad optics. “It hurts us, too,” another said of the pepper spray. It was true; sometimes they would stand in their line sniffling, with tears in their eyes. But they were the ones spraying it—and electing to not wear safety gear.

Earlier, I had tried my luck asking an agent why they were so understaffed. He only gave me a canned nonanswer. Since these guys were much more talkative, I decided to try again.

“You think we’re short-staffed because you’re seeing shift change,” one agent said—the same nonresponsive answer the other officer gave me earlier in the day.

I pointed out they were stretched so thin they were using a line of parked cars as a fortress. “We do the best we can with what we have,” he said.

I pushed on, asking why deployment orders hadn’t gone o…