6 events in Passaic County with a date

Delaney protests grow beyond walls

Center's foes back divestment, benefit concert, film showing

By: Ricardo Kaulessar
NorthJersey.com
USA Today Network - New Jersey

..... Millions of dollars are divested from a major bank in the Garden state. There's a concert in Maplewood. A film screening in Jersey City. Demonstrations across New Jersey.
..... What do they all have in common? Delaney Hal.
..... There have been plenty of protests and other actions outside the immigrant detention center in Newark in solidarity with the detainees since they went on a hunger and work strike on May 22 [2026] over what they called horrid conditions inside.
..... Those activities have been mirrored by those miles away form the facility, which detainees' families and strangers sympathetic to their cause want to see shut down.
..... Maplewood resident Melissa Citro, an opera singer was the co-producter of a concert on June 20 [2026] at St George's Episcopal Church 500 Ridgewood Road in Maplewood, where she was scheduled to preform songs form a new work, "Songs of Re silence," by composer Sheila silver, who also produced the concert with the group Protestra.
..... The process are going to immigrant advocacy organizations First Friends of New jersey & New York and Movimiento Cosecha, which have been helping Delaney Hall and families.
..... Citro said she wanted to help detainees and their families after seeing news reports about the crackdown by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Minneapolis in January [2026] that led to the killings of residents Renee Good and Alex Pretti. That month, she made her first visit to the area outside Delaney Hall where she met family members of detainees and volunteers from various groups helping them.
..... "I was brought to my knees by that visit. I met sum family members who were there to visit some detainees. One was holding a 4-month-old baby. Two had gone to try to find a relative and were given no information about where that person was," Citro said. I met the volunteers who were on the ground there every day to help. I saw the resilience of both those families and the volunteers helping them, and I knew I had to do something."
..... Rhode Island-based Citizens Bank has over 1,070 branches in 13 sates and the Distinct of Columbia, calculating 107 in New Jersey.
..... The bank, with $222 billion in assets, has two locations in Jersey City. The city has decided to divest over $360 million in funds form Citizen Bank, with $150 million already divested, to protest the bank's financial ties to the prison companies CoreCivic and The GEO Group.
..... The GEO Group operates Delaney Hall and CoreCivic operates the Elizabeth Detention Center in nearby Elizabeth. Citizens Bank has provided $2.5 billion in financing to both companies, including $100 million earlier this year. [2026]
..... Citizens Bank made a choice to finance the caging of human beings for profit. Jersey City is making a choice too: we will not be complicit, and we've already begun the process of pulling city funds," Mayor James Solomon said in a statement. "As long as institutions continue to bankroll the private prison industry and the suffering it depends on, we will use every tool at our disposal to ensure Jersey City taxpayers are not financing the abuse of our neighbors."
..... The City Council on June 10 [2026] approved a resolution that authorized the divestment.
..... Rory Shehan, a spokesperson for Citizens bank, said in a statement about the divestment to NorthJersey.com : "we ear disappointed they have taken this step because the facts show that we have a strong record of corporate responsibility. We are proud of our commitment to clients, customers , and communities across the country and across industries. the claim that citizens is not committed to this communities is simply untrue. At the same time, it is not the role of banks to set public policy. Our responsibility is to follow the law and apply our standards consistently as we serve all of our clients."
..... The Jersey City divestment ties into a larger effort, "De-ICE Citizens Bank," calling on the bank to cut ties with those prison companies. There were DE-ICE Citizen Bank protests on June 6, [2026] outside various branches across New Jersey.
..... Don Stern, who lives in Highland Park in Central Jersey, lead a small group of protesters outside the branch on route 27 in Edison.
..... Stern said the Edison protest, like similar ones at Citizens Bank branches elsewhere in New Jersey and in other parts of the country, was intended to shame the bank into ending any financing of prison companies that operate facilities in what he called a horrendous manner.
..... "If you put enough pressure on some of these outfits and embarrass them enough, you'll get them to change their behavior," Stern said.

In view of World cup attendees

..... Close the Camps NJ, a coalition of various action groups, is planning protest a highway overpasses near MetLife Stadium during World Cup games in June and July. [2026]
..... "People caught in this system can never win. They are held hostage by GEO for as long as the for-profit system needs them," the group said in a statement. "We are asking soccer fans to take this message back home: There are concentration camps in the USA where humans are used and abused, and laws and human rights are suspended. We all need to demand the immediate release of the detainees and the disbandment of these camps. this just stop how."

Benefit screening to help families

..... On June 26, [2026] the public will be reminded of the plight of migrant held in Delaney Hall and other detention centers with a screening of he 2009 Academy Award-nominated documentary "Which Way Home" at 7 PM. at Grace church Van Vorst in Jersey City.
..... The film is about unaccompanied migrant children riding La Bestia, a freight train thorough Mexico, in a desperate attempt to reach the United States. The screening will be followed by a panel discussion featuring Catlina Adorno, a volunteer organizer at Cosecha NJ: Shaira Cruz, an advocacy associate at AAPI-NJ and a community organizer at Migrante NJ: Sierra Kraft, executive director at Immigrant Children Advocates Relief Effort; and Jessica Lazo, manging attorney for Chaldean's Legal Services at International Rescue Committee NY/NJ.
..... Proceeds from the event will go directly to Cosecha NJ's Family Support Fund, which provides emergency financial assistance to detainees; families. Tickets are $25 and can be purchase at zeffy.com/en-US/ticketing/benefit-film-screening-which-way-home .

Music of resistance

..... Citro, accompanied by fellow soprano Teresa Castillo and pianist Francesco Barford, was to preform the world features of "Songs of Re silence," which features songs telling the stories of individuals facing various crises, in South Sudan to a Turkish PhD student arrested and jailed for writing an op-ed in her school newspaper.
..... Also, as part of the 80-minute concert, Barford and flutist Juan Carlos Narvaez were to perform "Border-less Dreams," a new work by composer Arturo Rodriquez that explores the immigrant experience.
..... Citro said she looked forward to performing the songs at the concert because of the gravity of what is happening in the world now.
..... "All the songs are topical: all of them deal with the crises that we are facing as a country right now. The erosion of free speech, encroaching fascism, and bigotry. So the songs themselves are going to send an important message," Citro said. "These songs also contain a message of hope. The last sentence of the last song is 'May we be saved by what we save.' "
..... The Department of Homeland Security and ICE did not respond to questions for NorthJersey.com for comment on the story.

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