ICE plans to reopen Newark immigrant detention facility
By: Ricardo Kaulessar
NorthJersey.com
USA Today Network - New Jersey
..... U.S. Immigration and Customs enforcement announce Wednesday [02/26/2025] the imminent reopening of Delaney Hall to process detained immigrations.
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Delaney Hall, a detention center surrounded by truck steps and warehouses in an industrial area across form the Essex County Correctional Facility on the outskirts of Newark, [NJ] once held immigrant detainees and will reopen, ICE said, after "reaching an agreement with the facility;s owner to reestablish the federal mitigation processing and detention center at the 1,000-bed facility."
..... "This detention center is the first to open under the new administration," said ICE acting director Caleb Vitello in a statement that accompanied the announcement. "The location near an international airport streamlines logistics and helps facilitate the timely processing of individuals in our custody as we pursue President Trump's mandate to arrest, detain, and remove illegal aliens from our communities."
..... an exact date was not given for the reopening. This announcement falls in line with the Trump administration's goal of the mass deportation of 11 million people, some of whom could end up being held at Delaney Hall.
..... The center is owned by the prison company the GEO Group, which had been seeking legal means to get the facility reopened since former President Joe Biden was in office. The company last year [2024] sued Governor Phil Murphy and state Attorney General Matthew Platkin seeking to stop enforcement of a state law passed in 2021 by the Legislature that prohibits local hails from entering into new contracts to house federal immigration detainees.
..... A federal court last year [2024] placed an injunction saying the state law does not apply to privately run detention facilities, such as Delaney Hall, after it upheld an April 2023 ruling sought by another prison company, CireCivic, against the state ban, which would have closed the Elizabeth Detention Center in Elizabeth. [NJ]
It remains open.
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According to the GEO Group lawsuit, the prison company, the second-largest in the country after CoreCivic, has spent $5 million on upgrades to Delaney Hall. The faculty holds 1,196 beds, and from 2011 to 2017, it contacted with ICE to house up to 450 mitigation detainees.
..... The announcement provoked a backlash form immigrant support groups and elected officials.
..... Democratic Representative LaMonica Mclver, who represents Newark [[NJ] in the 10th Congressional district, said in a statement: "The Delaney Hall contract is in direct opposition to the will of the people here in Newark. [NJ] I denounced the potential opening of this facility earlier this month [02/2025] alongside my colleagues form New Jersey because privately owned detention centers degrade public trust in our institutions - the lack of transparency often leads to poor conditions and longer sentences."
..... Democratic Representative Rob Menendez, whose district also includes Newark, [NJ] said in a statement that the announcement of the reopening is "a step in the wrong direction."
..... "These expansion efforts will not make our country safer - they are simply an extension of the president;s inhumane crude against hardworking immigrant families," Menendez said.
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Mclver and Menendez last month [01/2025] signed on to a letter to ICE denouncing the expansion of private mitigation detention centers in New Jersey, and earlier this month, [02/2025] made an unannounced visit to the Elizabeth Detention Center to conduct oversight and assess conditions within the facility.
..... Eliana Fernandez director of organizing for the immigrant advocacy group Make the Road New Jersey, said in a statement: "The reopening of Delaney Hall as a privately urn detention center will incentive even more terror in our communities in order to turn a profit."
..... Amol Sinha, executive director of the ACLU of New Jersey, said, "The planned opening of Delaney Hall as a private immigration detention facility presents a serious threat to New Jersey's immigration communities and is one of the largest immigration detention contracts our state has ever seen."