ICE has announced plans to reopen the Delaney Hall immigration detention facility in Newark, New Jersey, this spring. The facility, which previously operated between 2011 and 2017, will become the first detention center to reopen under the Trump administration.
The private, for-profit detention center will be contracted by the federal government to serve as a processing and detention facility for immigrants. It is the largest of its kind in the region, with a capacity of over 1,000 beds.
Acting ICE Director Caleb Vitello stated that the facility’s size and location near a major airport will support the president’s goal of “removing illegal aliens from our communities.” Amy Torres of the New Jersey Alliance for Immigrant Justice called it “one of the largest detention facilities along the East Coast.”
This announcement follows a recent ICE raid in Newark that left many in the local immigrant community shaken. Torres noted that the raid involved detaining a U.S. citizen and a veteran, raising concerns over the broader impact on immigrant residents.
Local immigrant advocates and elected officials, including Senator Cory Booker, have criticized the move, arguing that the contract with GEO Group, the company running the facility, is more about profit than public safety. “This is not about fixing our broken immigration system but about enriching corporations,” Booker said. Torres pointed out that GEO Group was a major donor to the Trump campaign.
The ACLU of New Jersey also condemned the move, calling it an expansion of the Trump administration’s “unconstitutional, racist, and xenophobic” mass detention and deportation policies. Newark Mayor Ras Baraka has voiced strong opposition, insisting that ICE must meet city property-use requirements and obtain necessary permits before reopening the facility. He emphasized that an immigration detention center is “not welcomed here.”
Delaney Hall was previously used by ICE as a detention center and later converted into a mandatory drug treatment center and halfway house by GEO Group. The company is currently facing a lawsuit related to a man’s death while held at the facility.
No specific reopening date has been set for the facility’s new role as an ICE detention center.
Related topics:
