New Jersey

The attorney general of New Jersey on Tuesday filed a lawsuit against the private company operating the Delaney Hall Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention center, demanding access for health officials amid allegations of “inhumane and unsanitary conditions”.

Immigrants locked up at the federal detention center in Newark began a hunger and labor strike more than 10 days ago to protest against conditions, while demonstrations built up outside that veered into violent scenes after dark.

Tuesday’s lawsuit, filed by Jennifer Davenport, the state’s attorney general, asks the state superior court in Newark to order the private operator, the Geo Group, to grant the New Jersey department of health full access to the facility to conduct inspections.

Kim, a senator from New Jersey, had joined the state’s governor, Mikie Sherrill, also a Democrat, at the protest to speak with relatives of some of those detained. He told USA Today that the incident in which he was sprayed by a chemical substance came shortly after he had been inside Delaney Hall to see conditions for himself.

He said he emerged to a “standoff” between protesters and agents from ICE, who he said had deployed an armored vehicle as a barricade, and that he “kind of lined up in front of them” to try to de-escalate the situation.

“ICE officials told me that they were going to push through the crowd with their vehicle and they wanted to get some vehicles out of there,” Kim said.

“I tried to arrange a situation where people would not get hurt, where there wouldn’t be a confrontation. Unfortunately, ICE just continued on.”

People were “getting tackled and brought to the ground” and ICE “started pushing through with their vehicles” and “started shooting at us with pepper balls and using pepper spray”, he said.

“I tried to do whatever I could standing in the middle to keep people safe.”

The hunger and work strike and protests come as the Trump administration continues its controversial, aggressive and increasingly unpopular mass deportation campaign, targeting immigrants nationwide to detain and deport them.

A letter from detainees was published by advocates on Tuesday morning. Two men recently released from Delaney confirmed in interviews with the Guardian their participation in the strike, despite denials by the Trump administration that any such strike was happening.

“We are detained, we are on hunger strike, demanding due process rights and the improvement of conditions,” one of the men said in an interview with the Guardian. “We are not criminals. We are people who enter [the facility] with a clean record. We pay our taxes. [We are] Fathers. Mothers. Spouses of citizens with existing petitions.”

Knocking on strangers’ doors on a warm May afternoon in Trenton, New Jersey, Adam Hamawy did not seem fazed when more than a few went unanswered.

It’s his first time running for office, but this is an area where he has experience. After returning from a medical mission in Gaza in 2024, Hamawy went to Washington to describe the crisis – which he viewed as a US-funded genocide – to lawmakers, only to encounter “too many doors that were closed, that didn’t even want to listen”.

One of the few representatives on Capitol Hill who met with him was his own: Bonnie Watson Coleman, who has served New Jersey’s 12th congressional district for more than a decade.

When she announced her retirement in November 2025, after six terms, Hamawy decided it was no longer enough to seek the attention of those elected to serve in Washington – and launched his campaign to join them.

In six months, Hamawy has gone from a political nobody to, deemed by most measures, the frontrunner in a crowded race, endorsed by prominent progressive and Democratic figures including Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar and Tammy Duckworth. His work history has driven him to call for Medicare for All, advocating for sanctions and an arms embargo on Israel, and the abolition of ICE – and to say openly he cannot support the Democratic leaders Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer.

New Jersey senator Andy Kim and Governor Mikie Sherrill were outside the facility Monday morning to speak with detainees’ relatives.

“I’m back at Delaney Hall with @GovSherrillNJ and other members of the NJ delegation to meet with families of detainees and listen to community advocates,” Kim said on X. “We’re working together to make sure they’re heard and to speak out with them.
Delaney Hall must be shut down immediately. ICE cannot be allowed to continue operating in this way.”

Mejia emerged from a crowded primary in February and cast the race as a test of Trump’s leadership. She criticized his pardons of people convicted of January 6-related crimes and faulted him for freezing funds authorized by Congress.