Delaney Hall, a privately operated detention center in Newark, drew national attention on Friday as Mayor Ras Baraka, a Democratic candidate for New Jersey governor, was arrested outside the facility by federal immigration agents.
Three members of New Jersey’s congressional delegation — Rep. LaMonica McIver, Rep. Rob Menendez Jr. and Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman — were detained. They are all Democrats.
Surrounded by truck stops and warehouses in an industrial area across from the Essex County Correctional Facility on the outskirts of Newark, Delaney Hall had been shuttered but, as of May 1, is again holding immigrant detainees despite a pending lawsuit about compliance with permits, certificate of occupancy and inspection..
In February, the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency awarded Delaney Hall’s owners, GEO Group, a contract to hold migrants facing deportations at the 1,100-bed facility.
Immigrant advocates concerned about ICE detentions
Delaney Hall, a detention facility in Newark that once held immigrant detainees, may soon do so again under a plan by the prison company The GEO Group, under contract to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The reopening of the detention center to house ICE detainees has a focus for immigrant support advocates who have expressed concerns about the center’s management company’s track record of preventable detainee deaths and inhumane conditions — and its potential to profit from the mass deportation plan that President Donald Trump has set in motion.
Newark Mayor Ras Baraka on May 5 slammed the owner of the prison, The GEO Group, saying at a press conference at Newark City Hall that it had put detainees in the facility in recent days, despite the city’s suit saying the company has failed to file required permits for construction and continued occupancy and has not allowed inspectors into the facility.
“They are following the pattern of the president of the United States, who believes that he can just do what he wants to do and obscure the laws — national and constitutional laws — and they think they can do the same thing in the state of New Jersey and in Newark,” Baraka said.
GEO Group spokesperson Christopher Ferreira said Delaney Hall has a valid certificate of occupancy issued by Newark and complies with health and safety requirements, and that the attempt by the mayor’s office to stop the facility from opening was a political campaign to keep the federal government from arresting, detaining and deporting criminal immigrants.
The city filed a lawsuit in state Superior Court in Essex County in April ordering The GEO Group to “cease occupancy [and] construction, and permit entry for inspection” of Delaney Hall, which is on Doremus Avenue in an industrial area on the outskirts of Newark.
The building had been vacant since 2023, when it served as a drug treatment center and halfway house. Delaney Hall from 2011 to 2017 housed immigration detainees.
Multiple other lawsuits related to the facility’s opening are continuing to play out.
The GEO Group, which owns Delaney Hall, last year sued Gov. Phil Murphy and Attorney General Matthew Platkin seeking to stop enforcement of a law passed in 2021 by the state Legislature that prohibits local jails from entering into new contracts to house federal immigration detainees. Federal District Judge Robert Kirsch upheld an April 2023 ruling sought by another prison company, CoreCivic, against the state ban, which would have closed the Elizabeth Detention Center in Elizabeth. It remains open.
The American Civil Liberties Union obtained documents in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed in September that showed that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement was looking to expand its immigration detention capacity across New Jersey.
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“New Jersey is a state of immigrants, and we must do everything in our power to ensure we stop this facility from opening to protect the more than 2 million immigrants and millions of children with immigrant parents,” said Nedia Morsy, deputy director of the immigrant advocacy group Make the Road New Jersey.
NorthJersey.com contacted the two attorneys representing The GEO Group in the lawsuit, Geoffrey Brounell and Scott Schipma, and The GEO Group’s media relations for comment on the lawsuit and about the current status of Delaney Hall.
Christopher Ferreira, director of The GEO Group’s corporate relations, responded by email and referred the matter to Immigration and Customs Enforcement for comment. NorthJersey.com contacted nine representatives at ICE for comment by email but did not receive a response.
Prison company upgrading detention center in Newark
According to the lawsuit, the prison company, the second-largest in the country, after CoreCivic, has spent $5 million on upgrades to Delaney Hall, which holds 1,196 beds, and from 2011 to 2017 it contracted with ICE to house up to 450 immigration detainees.
This effort to make over the facility has critics worried that it may reopen for business early this year to coincide with the return to the White House of Trump, who threatened the mass deportation of 11 million people, some of whom could end up being held at Delaney Hall.
Since his inauguration on Jan. 20, ICE agents have carried out raids across the country as part of Trump’s crackdown on undocumented immigrants who have committed crimes, leading to the arrest of 956 people. However, the raids have provoked controversy and outrage, including over one in January at the Ocean Seafood Depot in Newark, about three miles from Delaney Hall, when a U.S. military veteran was one of the people arrested even after showing his military ID.
Also, Congress passed the Laken Riley Act, which gives immigration officers the right to detain undocumented immigrants in the U.S. if they have admitted or are suspected, arrested or charged in criminal offenses resulting in death or bodily injury. They also could be detained and deported without first being convicted. That will result in more people being placed in detention centers.
The GEO Group, in the suit filed last April in U.S. District Court in Trenton, said the 2021 New Jersey law “prohibits ICE from entering into contracts with private service contractors — like GEO — for the detention of individuals by the federal government.”
Critics point to a November filing by The GEO Group with the Securities and Exchange Commission. In the filing, the company said it responded to ICE’s procurement for a facility with a minimum of 600 beds in the Newark area, “which is expected to result in a 15-year contract to be awarded by the end of December.”
The GEO Group reported in its 2023 annual report that 43% of its revenues came from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement contracts.
Detention lawsuit redux
The GEO Group wants to reopen the facility, the suit says, because in May 2023, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security released a request for information for possible detention sites to “house non-citizens and immigration violators in support of its public safety mission” under federal law.
The site “will be located within a 50-mile ground commute distance from the Newark Field Office and would be capable of providing 500 to 600 beds.” ICE received four responses to the request, with The GEO Group chosen.
The GEO Group says in the suit that if the state law, known as AB-5207, “eliminates GEO’s ability to offer the Delaney Hall Facility to meet the detention requirements in the Acquisition Planning Forecast, GEO would lose the opportunity to obtain a contract with an estimated value of over $100 million.”
The New Jersey Attorney General’s Office said in a statement that it disagrees strongly with lifting the New Jersey restrictions on private detention, and has appealed the CoreCivic decision.
“Private detention facilities threaten the public health and safety of New Jerseyans, including when used for immigration purposes,” a spokesperson said in the statement. “While the district court’s injunction remains in effect, we have acknowledged that we cannot enforce that state-law provision against any private detention facility. But we await oral argument on our fully briefed appeal, and we hope to overturn the injunction.”
The GEO Group acknowledges in its lawsuit it is seeking the same legal outcome as CoreCivic. Kirsch is also the judge presiding over this case.
Immigrant advocates oppose reopening detention centers
Protesters gather outside Delaney Hall, a detention center in Newark, in December.
Various immigrant advocates have expressed concern about the reopening of Delaney Hall.
Morsy, the deputy director of Make the Road New Jersey, said in a statement to NorthJersey.com earlier this month: “GEO Group has a horrific track record of preventable detainee deaths, stealing inmate wages, and inhumane conditions. They stand to profit from Trump’s plans for mass deportations and the pain of family separation.”
The Guardian reported that 60 detainees at immigration processing centers in California operated by The GEO Group launched a hunger strike last summer in protest of substandard conditions, including food poisoning and unavailability of water for up to 12 hours.
New Jersey representatives for Washington, D.C.-based Detention Watch Network, with several other New Jersey immigrant advocacy groups, protested in front of Delaney Hall by holding a posada there on International Migrants Day. Las Posadas — “posada” is Spanish for “inn” or “lodging” — is a Mexican religious festival that takes place over the nine days before Christmas and reenacts the journey of Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem.
Detention Watch Network referred NorthJersey.com to a brochure it created to inform the public about opposing detention centers in New Jersey, where, it notes, “It is possible that the reopening of Delaney Hall will result in increased presence and detentions by ICE in our community.”
Other advocates, such as Molly Linhorst, staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey, are concerned about the center’s location in a heavily industrialized area, which could expose detainees to pollution, and that the company is engaging in detainment for profit.
“The very structure of a private company making money off the backs of people who are in detention, whether it be civil or criminal, is extremely concerning,” Linhorst said.
Ricardo Kaulessar covers race, immigration, and culture for NorthJersey.com. For unlimited access to the most important news from your local community, please subscribe or activate your digital account today.
Email: [email protected]
Twitter/X: @ricardokaul
This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Delaney Hall in Newark NJ: Where was Ras Baraka arrested?
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