Newark, N.J. — What began as another routine head-count at Delaney Hall on Thursday evening turned into a four-hour standoff, a midnight manhunt, and a fresh political firestorm over America’s growing reliance on corporate-run immigration jails.
A rocky birth for a billion-dollar project
Delaney Hall is the newest link in Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s detention chain: a 1,000-bed complex leased to ICE by Florida-based GEO Group under a 15-year agreement worth roughly $1 billion. The facility occupies a converted warehouse district a few minutes east of Newark Liberty International Airport. Since its May opening, the site has processed busloads of migrants every week—many of them plucked from multi-state workplace raids—while drawing picket lines from neighborhood groups who object to a private lockup operating inside city limits.
How a protest turned into a breach
According to defense attorney Mustafa Cetin, detainees from at least six nationalities began a coordinated sit-down after dinner Thursday to protest what they described as “medical neglect, long lockdowns, and hour-long waits for drinking water.” When guards ordered them to disperse, several detainees reportedly smashed a service door and spilled into a loading bay, where an outgoing ICE transport van was waiting. Local police sources say four men used the chaos to slip through a perimeter gate.
GEO Group issued a two-sentence statement declaring the disturbance “resolved” and promising full cooperation with law enforcement. A Department of Homeland Security official confirmed the escape early Friday and said additional agencies had been called in to “secure the perimeter and track down absconders.”
Political fallout—again
Newark Mayor Ras Baraka—who was handcuffed in June after trying to conduct a surprise walkthrough—accused ICE of “outsourcing accountability” and demanded real-time access for city inspectors. Representative LaMonica McIver (D-NJ), already fighting misdemeanor charges tied to her own aborted visit in July, vowed to introduce legislation blocking any federal contracts that circumvent New Jersey’s ban on for-profit detention.
State lawmakers echoed those concerns on Friday, arguing that ICE exploited a loophole by labeling Delaney Hall a renovation rather than a new prison—a distinction that sidestepped the 2021 law prohibiting fresh deals with private corrections firms.
Advocates press for emergency oversight
Local nonprofit First Friends of New Jersey pulled together an impromptu press conference outside City Hall, urging Governor Phil Murphy to direct state health inspectors into Delaney Hall “before another flashpoint erupts.” Meanwhile, immigrant-rights attorneys say they will ask a federal judge on Monday to place the entire facility under an independent monitor.
A broader reckoning on the horizon
Thursday’s breach comes at a moment when private-sector lockups already face heightened scrutiny: watchdog reports this summer documented chronic understaffing, COVID protocol lapses, and medical shortfalls at multiple GEO-run sites. Delaney Hall—marketed as a “next-generation, high-tech” solution—was supposed to prove critics wrong. Instead, its first 30 days have produced the very headlines the company hoped to avoid: riots, run-offs, and bipartisan outrage.
As the search for the four missing detainees continues across Essex County, one question reverberates well beyond New Jersey: Can a profit-driven model ever guarantee the safety, transparency, and due-process protections that immigration detention demands? For now, Delaney Hall offers anything but reassurance.
