Dozens of immigrants at the Delaney Hall detention center in New Jersey continued their hunger and work strike Tuesday for the fifth consecutive day after clashes broke out over the weekend between protesters holding a vigil outside the facility and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents.
The strike began last Friday after months of complaints about unsanitary conditions at Delaney Hall. Among their demands, the detainees are asking for the intervention of the state governor, Mikie Sherrill, who went to the facility on Monday along with a Democratic congressional delegation, but was denied access.
What is ICE hiding? Governor Sherrill speaks out
I went to Delaney Hall after reports of unsafe and unconstitutional conditions inside, and what I heard from families and advocates was heartbreaking. The people being held there are fathers, mothers, sons, and daughters who deserve to be treated with dignity.⁰⁰My request to… pic.twitter.com/gQiqPyBBfB
– Governor Mikie Sherrill (@GovSherrillNJ) May 25, 2026
Governor Sherrill said Monday that the refusal “raises serious questions about what they are trying to hide from the public” and said she will continue to demand the closure of Delaney Hall.
As well as opposing “any expansion of mass detention centers in New Jersey, such as the one proposed in Roxbury.”
The Department of Homeland Security is seeking to convert a warehouse in Roxbury, New Jersey, into a detention center to house up to 1,500 immigrants.
Although for the moment it has limited the work pending an environmental assessment, according to local media.
Sherrill also spoke with family members of the detainees and activists, and said that what she heard “was heartbreaking,” reiterating that she will continue to “demand that ICE be held accountable.”
Senator Andy Kim and New Jersey Democratic Representatives Rob Menendez, Nellie Pou and LaMonica McIver participated in Monday’s vigil.
Kim was allowed entry and claimed to have witnessed “chaos inside and outside the Delaney Hall detention center.”
“Instead of dialoguing with me and others about the appalling conditions, ICE sent an armored vehicle and a line of armed agents who only made matters worse.
“Civilians were knocked down and subdued, and officers fired pepper bullets and pepper spray into the crowd,” he said on his X account of Monday’s incident, which followed another on Sunday.
Medical malpractice and food shortages reported
For GEO Group, the company that runs the Delaney Hall detention facility, it’s all about profit over people.
What I saw there this weekend was absolutely corrupt and cruel. pic.twitter.com/RYPLzUur18
– Senator Andy Kim (@SenatorAndyKim) May 26, 2026
On Monday, protesters formed a human chain in front of the facility in an attempt to prevent the possible transfer of immigrants, after which clashes broke out.
According to the senator, what happened at Delaney Hall “is more of the same lawlessness we have seen in other parts of the country.”
“What I witnessed and experienced was shameful,” he added.
New Jersey Senator Cory Booker also denounced in X that “the immigrants at Delaney Hall are on hunger strike because they are fighting for their human rights” and stated that the conditions there are “deplorable”.
Mullin contradicts versions
No individuals were directly struck by pepper ball projectiles.
On May 25, 2026, rioters obstructed law enforcement from exiting the ICE facility. Officers issued multiple lawful verbal commands for rioters to clear the area. Rioters refused to follow law enforcement commands. .. https://t.co/gNACHGgItm
– Homeland Security (@DHSgov) May 26, 2026
For his part, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin assured on social networks that “there is no strike” and that this is “a political maneuver by New Jersey politicians” who defend what are known as “sanctuary cities” for immigrants.
“The detainees are given a dollar an hour for jobs like cleaning. That’s not enough for them to buy anything or for phone calls,” Paulo Almirón, spokesman for Resistance in Action of New Jersey, told EFE today.
Almirón also denounced the presence of mold in the facility, the lack of cleaning supplies and that the detainees “have had to clean with the soap they use to bathe”.
Relatives have also denounced medical negligence, food shortages and inhumane conditions in general.
During Monday’s demonstration, one of the detainees was able to call from the center and denounced “that the last time they were given food they had live worms and that the water in the shower is boiling,” according to Almirón.
“Many have been denied medical attention except in chronic cases. We worked the case of a father of a family with leukemia and it wasn’t until after a month in detention that he could be given treatment,” he added.
Delaney Hall, the largest such facility on the U.S. East Coast, with capacity for 1,196 people, operated as an immigration detention center between 2011 and 2017, when it closed and reopened in May of this year, managed by GEO Group under a 15-year, $1 billion contract.
Filed as: Delaney Hall immigrant strike
With information from EFE