More than 300 detainees at the Delaney Hall immigration detention centre in Newark, New Jersey, have been on hunger and labour strike for over two weeks, protesting what they describe as 'horrible' conditions. Complaints include spoiled food, inadequate medical care, poor living conditions, and physical abuse by guards, with some detainees allegedly beaten and pepper-sprayed by a riot squad, requiring hospital treatment.
The strikers are calling for a meeting with New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy to demand the immediate release of all detainees from the privately operated 1,000-bed facility. The Department of Homeland Security has partly restored family visitation and released pregnant detainees, but protests outside the centre have escalated, with violent clashes between demonstrators and law enforcement. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents have used batons, pepper spray, and stun guns against protesters, journalists, and a US senator. Federal authorities arrested demonstrators on assault allegations, and Murphy deployed state police, leading to over 60 arrests in one night.
ICE officers also abruptly transferred Martin Soto, a detainee held in solitary confinement for being a suspected strike leader. Historian Jessica Ordaz, author of 'The Shadow of El Centro', said the strike fits a long history of migrant incarceration and resistance. 'The conditions we are seeing today have been present for generations,' she said, noting similar strikes at facilities in New Mexico and California over water quality, mould, and lack of medical care.
Ordaz traced the roots of such protests to the 1800s, when anti-immigrant laws targeted Chinese migrants, and highlighted the use of forced labour in detention centres since the 1940s. 'They would threaten them and say, “We’re not going to give you jobs” or “We’re not going to give you food”,' she said, adding that detainees are still paid as little as two cents for their labour in some facilities.
