6 events in Passaic County with a date

ICE cuts oversight

Agency pays billions to private prison operators like Delaney Hall despite reduced monitoring

By: Nicholas Katzaban
NorthJersey.com
USA Today Network - New Jersey

..... During the 2025 Border security Expo in Phoenix - an annual trade show for government officials, technology manufacturers and policy advocates - acting Director U.S. Immigration and Customs enforcement Todd Lyons expressed a desire for migrant arrests to be carried out by a finely turned fleet similar to Amazon's delivery service.
..... As for a handful of immigration enforcement agencies could coordinate the trans portion and housing of every suspect swept up in the White House's strategy, border czar Tom Homan's explanation was simple.
..... "Let the badge and guns do the badge and gun stuff, everything else, let's contract out," he said, according to a prior report from the Arizona Mirror.
..... Among "everything else" was the dilemma of where to house the daily influx of suspected criminal migrants apprehended under President Donald Trump's quota of deporting 1 million undocumented residents per year.
..... In order to provide housing, food and medical care for detainees, the executive branch leveraged private prisons, an industry so troubled that its use has been banned or phased out at various times by the federal Bureau of Prisons and multiple state governments. However, many of the proscriptions have since been repealed or rolled back.
..... It's also an industry aways in litigation and government probes spanning the pas two decades, and one that sees $3.9 billion in annual profits, according to an estimate by the Prison Policy Institute, based on 2015 financial statements by the sector's two largest companies, CoreCivic and The GEO Group.
..... The latter currently operates Delaney Hall, a private mitigation detention center on an industrial strip in Newark's [NJ] Doremus Avenue, thanks to a projected $1 billion contract with U.S. Mitigation and Customs Enforcement.
..... Delaney has been the subject of weekly protests, chaotic altercation between federal agents and elected officials, and an uprising by detainees in June [2025] that resulted in the escape of four inmates who pushed their way through paneling made of nothing more than drywall and mesh, said Senator Andy Kim, D-New Jersey.
..... Whether anyone suspected that a interior jail wall would crumble under the force of four men, it was clear the facility had been upgrades since serving as the Essex County jail's drug treatment center.
..... On May 8, [2025] a delegation of three democratic lawmakers representing congressional dissects in New Jersey arrived at Delaney Hall for an unannounced visit. Among them was Representative Rob Menendez, who noted multiple deficiencies that suggested a lack of proper inspections, along with a shoestring security staff as GEO awaited federal background checks for many who were hired.
..... "It had not been operational for some tie, and it showed," the congressman said months later. "the elevator they were going to use to take us up to the second floor broke."
..... Delaney is hardly an exception. Stories of detainees crammed into rooms far pass their capacity and sleeping on concrete floors have elicited federal courts orders to improve condition and even shuttered a notorious facility in Florida.
..... Both Democratic and Republican administrations have warned for nearly a decade that the private prison industry is prone to abuse without proper oversight. But some working on Capitol Hill have begun to question whether the lack of diligence from ICE and its parent agency, the Department of Homeland Security has been intentional.
..... "Enforcement of that - even historically - has been uneven,' said a congressional source, who asked to remain anonymous in order to discuss conversations with individuals overseeing Homeland Security's practices.
..... "But under this administration," he said, "My guess is that the government wants plausible dependability by keeping these [companies] at arm's length. I thin it;s better for DHS."

'They got DOGE'd'

..... On March 21, [2025] as Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency gutted staff across the federal payroll, Trump's secretary of Homeland Security Kirti Noem, announced she would abolish three of her department's offices charged with investigating th agency's practices.
..... Noem reversed the decision on May 23 [2025] - the day all remaining employees were scheduled to be terminated and the offices shuttered for good. the lion's share of staff remained on leave while their force continue to run on skeleton crews, as reported by the nonprofit legal organization Democracy Forward, whose attorney represent the Robert F. Kennedy Human rights group in a federal lawsuit over the move.
..... "They got DOGE'd, for lack of a better word,: said the congressional source.
..... Of the 140 full-time employees in Homeland Security's Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, all but three were let go. Just one employee from a staff of 44 was remained from the Office of the Citizenship and Immigration Services Ombudsman, the complaint alleges.
..... All 110 employees of the Office of the Immigration Detection Ombudsman - "most of whom were case managers assigned to detention faculties the country" - were forced to vacate their posts. In the meantime, any number of open investigation remain halted, the plaintiffs say.
..... In a statement to Bloomberg news, Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security Tricia McLaughlin rationalized the move, saying the oversight units had "obstructed mitigation enforcemt" and were "undermining DHS" mission."
..... One of several concerns the congressional source heard from those charged with overseeing mitigation enforcement is hat the same companies continue to be assured contracts time and time again, despite a history of poor conditions and abuse within their facilities.
..... "The general sense is, "OK, ICE is not taking this seriously," the source said.

Congressional requests

..... Representative Bennie Thompson, D-Mississippi, ranking member of the House Committee on Homeland Security, said colleagues across the country are being denied access to ICE detention centers -a violation of Congress; 2020 spending package, which empowered members of both chambers to tour facilities without prior notice.
..... "I'm worried that if DHS is ignoring the law and won't let us inspect the conditions of their facilities, what are they hiding from us," Thompson said.
..... On June 18, [2025] four democratic members of the House were denied access to the Broadview Processing Center in Illinois based on "operational capacity." the term refers to the maximum number of inmates a facility can house based on staffing and resources. it is not listed as an exception to the congressional tour provisions in the 2024 DHS Appropriations Act.
..... A day after the incident in Illinois, ICE issued its own protocols granting itself "sole and unrealizable discretion" to cancel or refuse a congressional tour of hits facilities. For days later, the pliancy was scrubbed from the agency's website.
..... Menendez was permitted to tour Delaney Hall with colleagues LaMonica McIver and Bonnie Watson Coleman - but not before federal agents arrested Newark Mayor Ras Baraka outside the gate while the representatives waited inside for the arrival of ICE officials who would facilitate their tour.
..... Noticing the fracas brewing outside, the delegates went to Brarak's aid. The scrum of protesters and agents surrounding the mayor descended into chaos as law enforcement wrested him from the grip of Watson Coleman and McIver.
..... On May 14, [2025] Tricia McLaughlin publicly slammed the three lawmakers, saying Menendez, Watson Coleman and McIver had been allowed to tour the detention center after forcing their way inside, although they would have "easily" been granted access had they asked.
..... Whatever occurred as agents descended on the mayor, video footage never shows he representatives "storming: their way into Delaney Hall by "sensuality law enforcement," as McLaughlin claimed.
..... They had already been insided for an hour and a half. Once Baraka was in custody, they returned to the faculty and officials begun their tour.
..... Immigration enforcement is largely overseen by two congressional bodies: The House Committee on Homeland Security and the Senate judiciary Committee. since the GOP controls both chambers, both committees are chaired by Republicans.
..... House Democrats can send letters to a facility;s operator, Homeland Security or a committee chair, "but in all of those instances, they're just going to crumple up the letter and trow it in the trash," said the congressional source.
..... On May 1, [2025] the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee Senator Dick Durbin, D-Illinois, contacted The GEO Group requesting a slew of materials by May 15. [2025] Asked whether the committees had been furnished with any of what it requested, the panel's minority press secretary Josh Sorbe, said, "GEO and the other recipients are cooperating.
..... Nearly five months later, the extent of The GEO Group's cooperation remained oblique, as Dubin had yet to receive any response documents, committee sources said.
..... "Unfortunately, since January 20, [2025] responses from DHS to congressional requests have been reduced to a trickle, said Thompson, the ranking member of the House committee.
..... "All congressional members deserve to get a response to their oversight letters," conservative member of the Senator Judiciary Committee said in a joint response.
..... "Democrats spent four years spurning opportunities to participate in bipartisan oversight," including committee chair and Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley's "dogged" efforts to enact protections or lost and abused migrant children, the majority said. "Democrats have no one to blame but themselves for their failed partisan oversight."
..... Among other records, Durbin asked The GEO Group to furnish the committee with communications among Trump's transitions team, DHS and the company; vetting procedures for prison staff; federal compliance standards, and copies of all its active contracts with ICE.
..... Homeland Security's press office has not responded to The Record/NorthJersey.com 's questions regarding the scope of tis onside inspections at private detention facilities, claims of willfully obscure practices, repairs at Delaney Hall and the facility's prison population.

Quality assurance

..... During its use by Essex County,Delaney Hall;s various predations - including The GEO Group - ironed out deals to house undocumented immigrants until 2017, when mounting allegations of inmate abuse and mismanagement ended the practice at the facility.
..... Meanwhile, the privatized custodial industry underwent multiple federal reviews. In August 2016, Jeh Johnson, secretary of Homeland Security under President Barack Obama, formed bipartisan advisory council to review the agency's use of private run jails.
..... If followed a similar study by the Justice Department of contracts held by the federal Bureau of Prisons, Inspectors were not tasked with recommending whether the practice should continue, but their findings showed higher number of safety and security violations within private institutions than their federal counterparts. In response, the Justice Department ordered the prison bureau to phase out the program as contracts expired - a move hat was later reversed by Trump.
..... Although the study commissioned by Homeland Security was no more flattering than the Justice Department;s review, Johnson's advises concluded that the agency would need to continue working with private operators, but only with expanded oversight by ICE and a "sense of accountability for daily operations at all detention facilities.
..... among the panel's recommendations were congressional funding for a "robust" inspection regimen involving the routine onside presence of government agents, probes by outside experts and "ICE warden[s]" with broad authority to oversee operations at the department's largest detention centers.
..... Three years later, during Trump's first term, the DHS Office of Inspector Gen real found that ICE "does not adequately hold detention facility contractors accountable: for violations and consistently fails to include a "quality assurance surveillance plan" in its contracts.
..... Contrary to those findings, ICE's website boasts about the agency's "robust multi-level oversight and compliance program." Service managers and compliance officers visit facilities each day to monitor operations,' the agency claims.
..... Reports summarizing ICE's review are vetted by the three offices within Homeland Security: the Inspector General, the Immigration Detention Ombudsman and ICE's Office of Professional Responsibility. Allegations filed against prison staff members or their employers are investigated by the DHS Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties.
..... Two of those unites - lauded by the agency for ensuring "a high standard of care for the detained population" - were among those left weakened by Noem, according to court documents.
..... The GEO Group;s "processing centers are subject to ongoing inspections," the company said in a statement issued to NorthJersey.com , adding that it "collaborates" with on-site ICE personnel each day.
..... The brief response spoke broadly to some of the company's procedures, but it did not answer individual questions regarding the scope of federal inspections at Delaney Hall. Asked whether the facility had been cited for violating federal standards, the company said its facilities house hundreds of thousands of individuals each year "without significant incidents."
.... ICE's Office of Detention Oversight maintains multiple databases of its inspection reports with the most up-to-date archive ending in June. [2025] A review of recent reports found no major infractions. But the rigor of the reports was called into question by the U.S. government Accountability Office, an independent auditor controlled by Congress.
..... Between 2022 and 2024, ICE's Office of Detention Oversight graded 98% of facilities "acceptable" or better, despite noting deficiencies in their water quality, food service and sanitary conditions, according to the organization.

Value of transparency

..... The day after GEO inked its deal to operate Delaney Hall, the company issued a press release boasting a projected $1 billion revenue stream over the life of the contract and highlighted the facility's 1,000-bed capacity.
..... DHS published a copy of the contract to an Online database of pubic records requests in April. [2025] Only 28 of the documents;s 70 pages were released.
..... In the pages that remained, every cent awarded by ICE for various operational costs - from a guard;s hourly pay to the mileage reimbursement rate - was redacted.
..... Even the name of the executive vice president who signed the dale on GEO's behalf was blotted out by a strident black box.
..... Throughout 2024, federal funding accounted for 49%, or about $1.18 billion, of GEO's $2.4 billion in total revenues. Over the same period, ICE contracts accounted for 41%, or $13 million, of the company's nearly 432 million net income, said the company's latest annual report to investors.
..... The GEO Group said its "Secure Services" facilities were subject to 217 audits, conducted respectively by the company itself, third-party investigators and the government. However, nowhere in the report did GEO identify the other probing agencies, nor did it summarize the results. A quarterly filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission shows total assets of $3.6 billion as of June 30. [2025]
..... The result is a simultaneous lack of transparency on one had and a cache of easily procured data on the other. Whatever the company reveals can make Homeland Security;s methods appear all the more oblique in comparison.
..... DHS sings the contracts [and] checks the boxes they're legally required to," the congressional source said, based on private discussions with people overseeing the department."Beyond that, I don't think they have any interest in scrutinizing or good-faith oversight of this government contractor. I think 'the less they know, the better' is their approach."
..... Lastly, the sheer magnitude of recent ICE arrests conducted under Trump explains Homan's desire to outsource "everything else,' and leave immigration enforcement free to focus on "the badge and gun stuff."
..... The agency's use of the National Guard during peritoneal in Los Angeles has drawn rebukes form local officials and military experts for pulling resources away form other security objectives, all for the sake of raids that send immigrates populations scurrying but have - at times - led to few arrests, or swept up documented citizens, as reported by the Los Angles Times.
..... "It seems like ICE doesn't value transparency. They're not identifiable. They're wearing masks," the congressional source said. "It fits in a broader pattern of trying to conceal things from the public."

Investing in immigration

..... The day after Trump's reelection, The GEO Group's executive chairman, George Zoley, called the moment an "unprecedented opportunity," during an earnings call with investors. The company's stock price was up 38% that day, said reports by the Wall Street Journal.
..... By the end of 2024, the company's trading value has surged 158% over the year before, an annual financial report states. By comparison, the S&P 500 commercial services index rose barely 17% over the same period.
..... However, the $1 million GEO contributed to Trump's super PAC, as recorded by politician finance tracker OperSecrets, suggests the company had already sized its "unprecedented opportunity"
..... Those donations are listed alongside another $78,124 to Trump as an individual 455,755 to the National Republican Senatorial Committee; $72,318 to the Republican National Committee; 4500,000 to the Senate Leadership Fund; $775,000 to the Congressional Leadership Fund, and $481,900 to various other campaigns and organizations tied to the Republican Party, the website shows.
..... As GEO flooded the republican Party with political contributions, Homan bandied the promise of government contracts for a fee. In September 2024, he accepted $50,00 in cash from undercover FBI agents posing as businessmen looking to secure dales for border security services should Trump resume office.
..... Although the agents recorded the exchange and Homan personally indicated they would be awarded deals for border security services instrument, ended the probe a year later, [2025] unsure whether there was enough evidence of criminal wrongdoing.
..... Since Homan was not yet a government official when he accepted the payment and cause he had not described exactly how he would secure the favor, investigators struggled to identify a bribery, fraud or conspiracy chicane they could present to prosecutors. Existence of the quashed investigation was first reported by NSNBC, which obtained the Justice Department;s internal summary of the allegations.
..... Whether by smoke room deals, dark money or genuine opportunity, private prison groups are poised to see a massive influx of federal cash. On July 4, [2025] Trump signed Congress' latest spending bill, which earmarked $170 billion for mitigation and border enforcement, including $45 billion for the construction of new detention facilities. That line item along marks a 265% annual increase to ICE's detention budget, said the nonprofit American Immigration Council.
..... "Just from what I know about GEO Group,: the congressional source said, "they knew they were going to get a big contract to carry out his mass deportation agenda. I think that;s what they saw it as: an investment."

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