Newark officials have set a curfew for the area around an ICE facility that has been the focus of intense protests and clashes between law enforcement and demonstrators over the past week.
The curfew is in effect for a half-mile radius around the Delaney Hall detention center on Doremus Avenue. The curfew took effect at midnight Sunday, and it will be in place between 9 p.m. and 6 a.m. until further notice.
Meanwhile the city has also closed Doremus Avenue, the corridor at the heart of Newark’s industrial section, to all pedestrians and any vehicle traffic that isn’t on “official business.” The Doremus Avenue restrictions are effective at all times. State police leaders said they have set up checkpoints on Doremus Avenue at Wilson Avenue and Roanoke Avenue.
Newark Mayor Ras Baraka said the curfew was needed “due to the escalating situation at Delaney Hall and the increasing need for police intervention.”
“Multiple individuals have already been arrested and found in possession of weapons, underscoring the seriousness of the threat,” Baraka said in a statement posted to social media overnight.
Delaney Hall has become an epicenter of protest since the Memorial Day weekend, after immigrants detained by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement inside the facility launched a hunger and labor strike over poor living conditions and alleged civil rights violations. Families of the detainees have been holding vigil outside the facility. Activists attempted to block vehicles from leaving the facility have sparked days of standoff with ICE agents.
Saturday night was the second night that state police took responsibility for managing crowds outside of Delaney Hall. Governor Mikie Sherrill has said the goal of state police involvement was to get ICE agents out of the picture and diffuse the situation.
So far, though, tensions have remained high. The curfew was set after another violent night in the area, which ended with police using tear gas and force to clear demonstrators from the area.
Sherrill and New Jersey Attorney General Jen Davenport in separate statements described “masked individuals” moving aggressively towards police that had been securing protest areas through Saturday. Sherrill said police acted in response to that aggression. She reiterated that she is trying to facilitate safe protest without giving the Trump administration pretext to step up ICE activity in the Garden State.
"I do not know why these individuals attacked or what they wanted to accomplish, but I refuse to let these dangerous actions detract from New Jersey’s dedication to ensuring public safety, keeping people safe from ICE, and that the people detained inside Delaney Hall are treated with dignity,” Sherrill said.
Davenport said at a press conference Sunday that three people had been arrested Saturday night, including one person for unlawfully possessing a weapon.
“ Violence has no place in our state, and such violence is no excuse for an ice surge here either,” Davenport said.
Catalina Adorno, an organizer with the New Jersey branch of the immigrant labor advocacy group Cosecha, said she was at the scene overnight. She described police using heavy amounts of tear gas, and advancing on protesters in a manner that didn’t appear to leave room for escape.
“ It wasn't until the state police showed up that, once again, everything just became, like, so violent,” Adorno said. “There was so much aggression.”
Visitation resumes
Sherrill separately announced in a social media post Sunday morning that federal officials had agreed to resume visitation for the immigrants detained at Delaney Hall. Visitation had been suspended since the Memorial Day weekend, after protests erupted outside the detention center while detainees launched a hunger and strike inside.
Sherrill said police would help escort visitors to the facility, and visitors should contact Delaney Hall for additional details about visitation rules.
Kathy O’Leary, the New Jersey coordinator for the Catholic advocacy group Pax Christi and a leader of the Eyes on ICE coalition, said when she tried calling Delaney Hall on Sunday morning, facility staff told her visitation remains cancelled and hung up.
O’Leary’s group is one of a few organizations that has spent the past year helping people visit detainees. She said the visitation rules are constantly changing, and it's always been difficult for visitors to get accurate information about what they need to do to see people inside.
“The facility has never given accurate or complete information to the families about how things work," O’Leary said.
O’Leary also had doubts that police escort would sit well with visitors.
"People are not going to want to do it,” O’Leary said. “They're not going to be comfortable with it."
Rep. Rob Menendez, a North Jersey Democrat who has frequently conducted oversight visits at Delaney Hall, said Thursday he’d been told by facility staff there would be new restrictions on who could visit. Detainees would need to submit a list of up to eight visitors, including the visitors' full names, addresses and dates of birth as part of a pre-approval process.
The GEO Group, which is the Florida-based private company operating Delaney Hall, did not respond to a request for comment.
Sherrill said she still wants the federal government to improve conditions for Delaney Hall detainees, give detainees a meaningful opportunity to review their cases, stop pressuring detainees into signing deportation documents, be transparent about who is being held in this facility, and ultimately close this facility
“I urge everyone who shares these goals to continue working together to lower the temperature and protest peacefully – so we can continue making progress for families and detainees while avoiding any ICE escalation that would only create more fear and uncertainty in our communities,” Sherrill wrote.
Adorno, whose group Cosecha has been helping families visit people inside Delaney Hall for the past year, said she wasn’t sure if advocates would be allowed to continue their work with the new police presence.
This story has been updated with additional information.
