Sunday morning Becky and I walked through heavy rain to a tent set up just outside Delaney Hall, an ICE detention prison holding over a 1,000 men and women in Newark, NJ. We had driven over from our daughter’s home in a Newark suburb. She had arrived earlier, joining other volunteers to set up coffee and food along with clothing, diapers and toys for families hoping to visit their loved one inside.
Situated off the turnpike in New Jersey among huge gas tanks, warehouses, depots and a state prison, Delaney Hall has been the flashpoint for protests of its inhumane treatment of inmates. On Friday, around 300 detainees began a weekend hunger and labor strike and called on Gov. Mikie Sherrill to visit Delaney Hall, a private, for-profit facility, and address their complaints.
The day before, Senator Andy Kim (Dem-NJ) had visited Delaney Hall and met with inmates and advocates. Voicing his support for the detainees, he wrote this on his Facebook page:
I rushed to ICE detention center Delaney Hall yesterday when I heard detainees began a hunger strike. Here’s what I saw:
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 that a few minutes with 4-month-old baby;
A husband of an American-citizen wife and kid;
A carton with the milk inside congealed solid (expiration date is tomorrow); [there were also complaints of worms in the food.]
A man there for nearly a year with no movement in his legal efforts;
A document showing next Tuesday’s court docket showing 74 cases before one judge in one day (averages about 5 minutes a case);
A man telling me ICE is trying to deport him to the Democratic Republic of Congo, where there is an 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);
A family unable to find out what hospital their family was sent to (ICE said they cannot give any medical updates to families of hospitalized detainees);
The Statue of Liberty as I left the facility to drive home. [You can see the Statue from Liberty State Park in Jersey City, not far from Delaney Hall.]
In another column, I’ll write more about what happens at Delaney Hall, and in the tent where volunteers provide support to families of detainees. Because what happens there, even if it’s not on the 6 o’clock evening news, must matter to us.
Ben Jacques Stories 