A records request from the New
Jersey Globe for information related to the Delaney Hall immigrant
detention center has provided something that has long been elusive:
the total number of detainees housed at the facility during one
moment in time. The documents also confirm some details regarding
the escape of four detainees during a chaotic day in June, including the use of gas
to keep detainees in the facility.
As of June 13, the 1,000-bed
facility held 859 detainees, according to the documents. In a sign
of the turbulence of life inside the facility, the documents also
detail how 400 detainees were set to be transferred to Texas and
another 50 to Pennsylvania at the time.
The Globe had made repeated
prior attempts to get information on how many detainees were held
at the facility, but was unable to do so beyond word of mouth from
advocates in contact with detainees and their
families.
Immigration and Customs
Enforcement (ICE) releases regular data
on detainee statistics that include
breakdowns by facilities, but those data have a catch: they are
based on running yearly averages of detainee populations, and
because Delaney Hall only reopened in May, the averages include a
number of months when the facility housed zero detainees. ICE
statistics show the facility as housing only around 160 detainees
as of earlier this month, and around 60 detainees in early
June.
When the Globe asked for
information on ICE’s statistics for a prior
story, the Department of
Homeland Security (DHS) cast doubts on the numbers but did not
provide an explanation for why they were anomalously low. The
underlying conclusion of that story – that most detainees housed at
Delaney Hall have no criminal convictions and are designated as
having “no threat level” – remains accurate, since the numbers
reflected in ICE’s data are simply a proportional fraction of the
true detainee statistics.
The internal reports, obtained
by the Globe through a Freedom of Information Act request, further
confirm prior reporting on a hectic period in mid-June when officials delayed meals for several hours
at a time, leading to unrest and the escape of four detainees from
the facility. (Detainees said
meals were not just delayed, but
also insufficient, according to the New York Times.)
The reports state that the
facility’s dining area was used to process a group of detainees,
leading to a four-hour delay before breakfast and anger among those
in Delaney Hall. Officials write that the situation calmed and
detainees returned to their room without the use of a specialized
crisis team, but hours later, a GEO official noticed bedsheets on a
barbed-wire fence, and soon realized a group of four detainees had
escaped. All four have since been arrested. The ICE report states the detainees shimmied
a gate open during their escape, three days after GEO had been
warned that the gate was not secure.
Efforts to count the building’s
detainees in the aftermath of the chaos were complicated because
GEO did not possess an accurate list of the people held in the
facility. ICE officials were forced to do a hand count of detainees
due to the list’s inaccuracies.
A GEO report also confirms what
witnesses reported in the days after the incidents: that officials
had used gas to “discourage” people from doing something. The
section of the report detailing what officials feared exactly is
redacted. The report did not specify the type of gas officials
used.
Earlier this year, ICE
signed
a 15-year contract to use the
facility for about $60 million per year. Baraka and other Democrats
have said the facility is operating without the required permits
and certificates, and the city of Newark is currently
suing
GEO Group over the
matter.
Since its opening, Delaney Hall
has been a hub for protests against Trump’s plans to deport
millions of the country’s undocumented immigrants. The internal
reports state protesters were there during the chaotic June day in
Delaney Hall; one document states a protester slashed the tire of
an FBI vehicle entering the facility. Newark police officers were
present but did not assist in handling the demonstrators, according
to the report, and the protesters mostly dispersed on their own by
3 a.m.
In a separate early May
incident, officials arrested Newark Mayor Ras Baraka for alleged
trespassing after a Delaney Hall official invited him onto the
facility’s grounds; a federal judge dismissed the
charges and reprimanded prosecutors a couple of weeks later. Federal prosecutors
also charged Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-Newark) with assaulting law
enforcement officers as demonstrators and police scuffled during
Baraka’s arrest. McIver pleaded not
guilty to the charges in
June.
Delaney Hall ICE document 1 Delaney Hall ICE document 2
The post ICE documents provide details on detainment
statistics, June unrest at Delaney Hall appeared first on
New Jersey Globe.
