ICE Observes Memorial Day By Pepper-Spraying Sen. Andy Kim, Like A Bunch Of Fascists
Happy Memorial Day to all the haters and losers.
Federal agents fashed it up again this weekend in response to a hunger strike by immigrants being detained at Delaney Hall, a privately run ICE prison in Newark, New Jersey. Goons from the Department of Homeland Security used pepper balls and other chemical agents on protesters outside the prison Monday., including US Sen. Andy Kim (D-New Jersey). New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill and a group of New Jersey lawmakers tried to visit the prison Monday, but Sherill was denied access because she’s only a governor and federal law only requires ICE to grudgingly admit members of Congress.
Delaney Hall is the same for-profit ICE prison, run by Geo Group, where last year ICE arrested Newark Mayor Ras Baraka for “trespassing” when he tried to visit the facility along with three Democratic members of Congress. Baraka’s charges were dropped after 10 days when the feds decided to instead charge Rep. LaMonica McIver with having “assaulted, impeded and interfered with law enforcement” during that May 2025 visit. (On video, McIver’s arm can be seen coming into contact with one of the goons manhandling her. That’s the “assault.”) The weak federal criminal case against McIver is still working its way through the courts.
In an attempt to disappear the hunger strike — which DHS insists isn’t happening at all — ICE has reportedly cut off prisoners’ access to phones and tablets that they had used to communicate to their families about the strike and about disgusting conditions inside Delaney Hall, which included reports of finding live worms in their meals, as well as being crammed into overcrowded cells with no AC and having their cases ignored by immigration judges, in an attempt to coerce them to accept “voluntary” deportation.
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DHS also appears to have moved Martin Soto, a Peruvian immigrant who helped organize the strike, to another ICE prison in the state, despite a court order that he shouldn’t be transferred. Lucky for him not to have been deported to Sudan!
The hunger strike began Friday, with detained immigrants telling family members and advocates that they want the release of nonviolent detainees, and to call attention to the alleged slow-walking of their cases by immigration judges. Some detainees are also refusing to do their prison jobs, like working in the kitchen. As at other ICE prisons, immigrants imprisoned in Delaney Hall have long complained of overcrowding, inedible food, unsanitary conditions, and a lack of medical care.
Sen. Kim and Rep. Rob Menendez — yes, he’s the son of Gold Bar Bob but so far hasn’t followed in his dad’s bribey footsteps that we know of — visited Delaney Hall Saturday evening. They were only allowed into the prison, Kim said, after he called up DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin to remind him that, by law, members of Congress are allowed to inspect immigration prisons without prior notice.
Kim described the visit in a disturbing series of tweets that detailed conversations he’d had with prisoners (everything not in brackets by Sen. Kim):
[an] 18 yr old high school student crying and saying she just wanted to graduate senior year
[a] Pregnant woman unable to get full OBGYN medical support
[a] Woman who had a miscarriage in the detention facility and left to manage all on her own
[a] Mom not allowed to spend more than a few minutes with 4 month old baby
[the] Husband of [an] American citizen wife and kid
[a] Man there for nearly a year with no movement in his legal efforts
[a] man telling me ICE trying to deport him to DRC where there is active Ebola outbreak (he’s from South America originally)
Numerous people who were arrested at scheduled interviews for green cards (trying to follow the formal process)
On Bluesky, Kim also demanded, “Shut Delaney Hall down, NOW.”
On Monday, protesters angry over Soto being transferred to another prison gathered outside the prison for a fourth day, using human chains and makeshift barricades in an attempt to block ICE vehicles from leaving. Kim tried to negotiate with ICE goons, asking that they allow immigrant advocates to see inside vehicles to make sure no more strikers were transferred out to break the strike, and for both the protesters and the tactical agents to otherwise back away from the entrances. But nah, the creepos with the chemical weapons decided to show the protesters who was boss.
But in the meantime, agents began pushing the crowd backward, firing less-lethal rounds containing an irritant toward the protesters and making several arrests.
At times, Kim stepped between the protestors and agents putting his arms up in a “stop” motion as the scene grew chaotic.
Gov. Sherrill also went to the prison Monday afternoon, accompanied by other members of the state’s congressional delegation including Kim, Menendez, and McIver, but Sherill said in a press release that she’d already been told she would be refused entry. She wrote that the denial of access raised “serious questions about what they are trying to hide from public view,” and reiterated her opposition to private immigration prisons, calling for Delaney Hall to be closed.
DHS responded to the lawmakers by accusing them of being monsters. In a post to Twitter (Bluesky screenshot), DHS insisted that it was OK to use chemical agents on protesters because they were “rioters” who refused lawful orders to move, and insisted that “No individuals were directly struck by pepper ball projectiles” so stop complaining.
The tweet reminded us all that “The First Amendment protects speech and peaceful assembly – not rioting. DHS is taking appropriate and constitutional measures to uphold the rule of law and protect our officers and the public from dangerous rioters.”
If there was any rioting or assaulting of officers, we sure don’t see it in this video, in which Sen. Kim can be seen speaking to protesters shortly before ICE agents make with the pepper spray.
No rioting in this one either, or this one, but maybe the rioting is in the form of a couple of protesters wearing scary Palestinian scarves.
DHS Boss Mullin also did his own round of lying in a tweet that insisted there’s no hunger strike and no “subprime conditions” (Bluesky screenshot) at Delaney Hall. And what’s more, why are these Democrats so in love with rapists and murderers, huh?
After nearly a year and a half of virtually all government press releases sounding like this, I suppose maybe it might seem naive of me to still be astonished at how routinely these fuckers lie. Every protester is a “rioter,” even though there was no riot. Every undocumented immigrant is among “the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens,” in the words of yet another DHS press release about Delaney Hall. And of course, don’t you dare call the detainees “immigrants,” because they are actually ILLEGALS and therefore not even really human.
It’s unbelievably corrosive, and of course the routine lying is a hallmark of authoritarianism, the substitution of slogans and simplistic claims for reality. If you think people scooped up in Trump’s ethnic cleansing crusade shouldn’t be given wormy food or housed in filth, you obviously are a monster who supports murder and rape. And while we’re sure many of the Twitter replies are from bots, there really do seem to be plenty of people whose chief gripes about the tweets are that DHS isn’t doing more to bust heads or to rid the country of all immigrants, because any of them could be a rapist or murderer.
But there’s also another possibility to consider: The ceaseless noise from the administration only seems to work for the small, and diminishing, core of diehard Trump supporters who have already quaffed the Flavor-Aid. Polls show that Trump’s deportation agenda is failing, so maybe all this noise is more about the administration’s desperation than anything else.
OPEN THREAD.
[NJ Monitor / WABC / Gothamist / NJ.com / NJ Globe / Jersey Vindicator]
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I also can't get over what a good photo Sen. Kim's picture of Liberty Island is. "Liberty Enlightening the World" and the US flag brightly lit in the surrounding darkness. Lovely how the green of the statue and the gold of the torch are reflected in the still water.
But her face can't be seen by the prisoners in the detention center.
Wilding out just like the low-rent Sturmabteilung they are.
That's life controlled by the unreconstructed.
Let's make sure we all have our active voter registrations and be all set for the big prize, changing control of Congress. That's our only chance at a semblance of a check on Maladministration 2.0. Subpoena power can go somewhere after all.
For maximal results, work for a Democratic impeachment+removal-sized majority. It's the only way.
Mount up!
And Don't Give Up The Ship!