US immigration

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.”

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.”

A federal judge in New York has banned US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents from arresting immigrants in or around three federal courthouses in lower Manhattan, where vigorous confrontations have played out since the start of Donald Trump’s second presidency.

Under an order issued on Monday by P Kevin Castel, a US district judge, federal agents are no longer allowed to make arrests of immigrants except under exceptional circumstances at the sites where hearings are held before immigration judges.

Castel’s ruling came in response to a lawsuit brought by the New York Civil Liberties Union, the American Civil Liberties Union, Make the Road NY and other groups.

Yassin said a coalition of lawyers was preparing a civil lawsuit alleging violations of the volunteers’ constitutional rights. Supporters chanted, “Trump, escucha, ¡estamos en la lucha!” (in English, “Trump, listen, we’re in the fight!”). Passing cars honked and federal officers watched from behind glass doors.

“We’re gonna continue to fight back, we’re gonna continue to organize, we’re not gonna stop,” said Lainy Yompian, a VC Defensa leader.

By the time “Operation Metro Surge” hit Minneapolis-St Paul, Minnesota, residents were primed to fight back. From houses and stores, in cars and on bicycles, people of every age, race and political stripe dogged ICE wherever it went. The protesters wore inflatable animal costumes, flak jackets and parkas heavy enough to brave weather so cold it froze the ink in reporters’ pens. They withstood teargas, police batons and arrests. And when agents fatally shot two US citizens in January, cellphone videographers were there to record the killings – and disseminate the images around the world on social media.

Public opinion swung decisively against Trump, the then homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, and “commander at large” Greg Bovino. The government was forced to retreat.

Attorney Paul Schwiep, who represents the groups, said the legal fight would continue even if the camp closed.

“While it is welcome news that people will no longer be inhumanely confined at this facility, the damage caused by this reckless and ill-conceived endeavor cannot simply be abandoned and forgotten,” he said.

“This project was recklessly advanced without any meaningful regard for the remote, environmentally sensitive and ecologically fragile landscape in which it was imposed. The fencing, lighting, paving and other infrastructure – all constructed without environmental permits, review, or analysis – must be removed, and any lingering harm remediated.”

A judge has cleared the way for the potential release of an Indian citizen who was taken into Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody last year after his Pennsylvania murder conviction was overturned following four decades in prison.

Four men deported by the US to Eswatini and denied in-person legal counsel for nine months while detained in a maximum security prison have the right to see a local lawyer, Eswatini’s supreme court ruled.