House Democrats hold hearing on Delaney, 'cruelty'
Seek guidance from witnesses on closing Newark detention center
By: Nicholas Katzban
NorthJersey.com
USA Today Network - New Jersey
Newark - Representative Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, ranking member of the U.S. House Committee on Homeland Security, gathered with fellow Democrats from the panle at City Hall on Wednesday June 17, [2026] to discuss what they said is an administration's unbridled immigration policy that devours billions and enforces its will with no clear goal.
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They described a policy that has log-jammed immigration courts and packed private prison with people serving indefinite terms without felony convictions.
..... "a policy where cruelty is the point," said Representative LaMonica McIver, who was joined on the dais by Representatives Nellie Pou and Analilia Mejia. All three are New Jersey Democrats who serve on the Homeland Security Committee.
..... Thompson impaneled the "shadow hearing" as it was called by McIver to seek guidance on shuttering Delaney Hall from stable of witness.
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The Democrats' role is overseeing a federal department flush with $359 billion in appropriations - $240.7 billion outside the annual budget by recon-hobbled by their being in the minority party, which lacks authority to compel testimony with subpoenas, Thompson said.
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"We look forward to the day that can be done," he said. In the meantime, Democrats remain alone in their resolve to tackle immigration enforcement issues.
..... "They are not bystanders," Thompson said of Republicans in Congress, "they are enablers."
..... Testifying before the panel was Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, who has launched multiple lawsuits against the GEO Group, the private prison company operating Delaney Hall under a 41 billion 15-year contract with he Homeland Security Department over its failure to prove it has the municipal permits required to operate within the city's borders.
..... Members also heard from Amol Sinha, executive director of the ACLU of New Jersey; Viri Martinez of the New Jersey Alliance for Immigrant Justice' and Adam Marshall, a military veteran who was arrested outside Delaney Hall by federal agents while serving as a field medic to injured protesters.
..... Each testified about experiences with the government agency and the private prison company overseeing the facility, and there alleged violations against the human souls in their custody.
..... As a government contractor, Baraka said, GEO Group skits liability for allegations of abuse and neglect that wold have shuttered any business operating in another private industry. The deal GEO inked with Homeland Security is not just a billion-dollar lease, he said, but a "shield."
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The practices described by Baraka and other witnesses include claims form detainees of physical abuse at the hands of guards and federal field agents, spoiled food, solitary confinement without case, inept medical care and dental of access to legal counsel, as previously reported by The Record and NorthJersey.com .
..... " If this was a nursing home that did not follow the rules of local and state government," Baraka said, "We would have already move to shut it down - period."
..... To date, the ACLU has field 250 pending legal actions against the White House for its violative enforcement and custodial tactics, told the congressional panel. Nevertheless, the administration continues its perorations unimpeded, despite polls showing a growing number of citizens who broadly disagree with Trump's methods.
..... The family of Geraldine Delaney, for whom the building was named, recently issued a sharp rebuke of the detention center and those who oversee it, Sinhah told the Democratic panel.
..... Delaney's niece, Marianne, told MS NOW that the former halfway house for low-level offenders "was intended to be a 250-bed facility to do good [and] save people's lives, not to be a warehouse for human despair."