NEWARK, N.J. — Governor Mikie Sherrill's request to tour Delaney Hall was formally denied on Sunday, making her the first sitting governor to be turned away from the state's largest immigration detention facility and raising what she called "serious questions about what they are trying to hide from public view."
The denial came one day after Representative Rob Menendez (NJ-08) and Senator Andy Kim conducted their own unannounced visit to the 1,196-bed ICE facility in Newark's Ironbound neighborhood. At a press conference outside the facility, Menendez relayed allegations from detainees and advocates about pregnant women, miscarriages, and recent graduates being held inside.
Sherrill, in a statement released by her office, said she came to listen to families and advocates who were gathered outside the facility after being barred from entering. "What I heard from them was heartbreaking," she said.
The governor also used the visit to amplify the work of the federal delegation, naming Senator Kim and Representatives Menendez, Nellie Pou (NJ-09), LaMonica McIver (NJ-10), and Analilia Mejia (NJ-11) as partners in the oversight effort. "They have been tireless in using their federal oversight authority to bring accountability to the facility," Sherrill said. "I will continue working closely with them to demand answers, protect constitutional rights, and ensure humane conditions."
Sherrill framed the issue in moral terms that echoed Menendez's message from the day before. "The people inside Delaney Hall are fathers and mothers, sons and daughters, and members of our community," she said. "In New Jersey, we believe in the rule of law and that everyone deserves to be treated with basic dignity. We have a duty to safeguard the rights, health, and well-being of everyone within our borders."
What Is Delaney Hall?
Delaney Hall sits at 451 Doremus Avenue in Newark's Ironbound section. A former warehouse converted into the largest immigration detention center on the East Coast, it is operated by the GEO Group, one of the nation's largest for-profit prison companies. The facility reopened in May 2025 under a 15-year contract with ICE reportedly worth approximately $1 billion. The GEO Group has projected the facility will generate roughly $60 million in annual revenue in its first full year of operation.
The facility had previously held immigrants from 2011 to 2017, then sat largely dormant until the Trump administration's second term accelerated immigration enforcement. By November 2025, the average daily population had surged to 807 detainees, triple the number housed there just two months earlier. According to NJ Spotlight News, nine out of ten detainees at Delaney Hall have no criminal record.
The GEO Group, in public statements, has defended its operations. The company says its facilities provide medical care, legal access, meals, recreation, and are accredited by national standards organizations. It has characterized criticism from elected officials as "politically motivated."
Menendez's Message from Inside
The governor's blocked visit followed a Saturday tour by Menendez and Kim that produced a viral video of Menendez speaking to reporters outside the facility's razor-wire fence.
"You have someone who should have been graduating — this woman's daughter, who should have been graduating from high school," Menendez said, his voice rising. "You have a pregnant woman in there. You have a woman who suffered a miscarriage in there, right? You have fathers, you have grandfathers, you have mothers, you have grandmothers. That is who ICE is holding in the Delaney Hall right now."
What Menendez described are allegations he relayed from detainees and advocates during the visit, not independently verified facts. NJBallot could not independently confirm the pregnant detainee, the woman who suffered a miscarriage, or the recent high school graduate. These appear to be accounts relayed to the congressman during the visit, not documented in public records or confirmed by ICE or the GEO Group.
"Delaney
Hall represents everything that is wrong with our country under the
Trump Administration," Menendez wrote in a Facebook post
accompanying the video. "It needs to be shut down and everyone
inside needs to be reunited with their families and communities."
The Democratic Campaign
The weekend visits by Sherrill, Menendez, and Kim represent the latest phase of a coordinated effort by New Jersey's Democratic leadership to turn Delaney Hall into a national symbol of opposition to the Trump administration's immigration policies.
The campaign has been building for months.
In May 2025, Newark Mayor Ras Baraka was arrested outside the facility during a congressional oversight visit, an incident that drew national attention and that Baraka later described as an attempt to intimidate elected officials. Representative McIver, who represents Newark in Congress, was charged with felony assault in connection with the same incident; she has called the charges "political intimidation." The charges remain pending as of this writing.
In December 2025, a 41-year-old Haitian asylum seeker named Jean Wilson Brutus died at Delaney Hall, less than 24 hours after being taken into custody. ICE announced the death six days later—violating its own two-day notification policy—and labeled Brutus a "criminal illegal alien." His family disputes that characterization and has sought an independent autopsy.
Senator Cory Booker, who has reintroduced the Dignity for Detained Immigrants Act alongside Menendez and McIver in the House, called for the facility's immediate closure after Brutus's death. The legislation would end for-profit immigration detention, eliminate mandatory detention, ban solitary confinement, and require unannounced inspections. Those provisions mean that the bill stands virtually no chance of passing in a Republican-controlled Congress.
What We Know—and Don't Know
Menendez's emotional appeal in the video raises specific allegations that NJBallot could not independently verify and are not documented in public records.
What is documented: On June 12, 2025, four detainees escaped through a wall made of drywall and chicken wire after a riot that detainees said was sparked by insufficient food, undrinkable water, and overcrowding. Video obtained by ABC7 showed the aftermath. The GEO Group acknowledged the incident but downplayed its severity.
What is also documented: The facility opened in May 2025 without proper permits from the City of Newark, prompting a lawsuit by Baraka's administration. City inspectors were barred from the property. The case remains active in federal court.
And what is further documented: The Department of Homeland Security, when pressed on conditions, has pushed back hard. Then-DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin, responding to criticism after Brutus's death, said the medical care at Delaney Hall "is the best health care that many aliens have received in their entire lives." She added: "Sanctuary politicians need to stop with the smears." The six-day delay in announcing Brutus's death sits in tension with McLaughlin's defense of the facility's medical care.
The Republican Side
The Republican response to Delaney Hall has been notably muted. No prominent New Jersey Republican has publicly toured the facility or defended its operations. Jack Ciattarelli, who received Trump's endorsement in the 2025 Gubernatorial election and who has pledged to end sanctuary policies, did not make the facility a centerpiece of his messaging. His campaign focused instead on tax policy and public safety.
In an unexpected development, Republicans in Roxbury Township, where the Trump administration has proposed building another 1,500-bed detention warehouse, have joined Democrats and the State of New Jersey in suing to block the project. Their specific concerns, according to the quote by Roxbury Mayor Shawn Potillo in the Governor’s press release, are environmental impacts, infrastructure overload and lost tax revenue, not specifically detainee conditions.
Senator Kim, who has proposed cutting public funding to migrant jails, has reported that Republican senators from other states have privately expressed similar concerns about warehouse-style detention facilities in their own jurisdictions.
The Political Stakes
For New Jersey Democrats, Delaney Hall is more than a local facility, it is a national symbol. With Sherrill's visit, the opposition now spans every level of state and federal government, from the governor's office to the congressional delegation to Newark's mayor. The daily protests, faith vigils, and unannounced visits by elected officials are designed to keep the facility in headlines and frame the 2026 immigration debate around human stories rather than enforcement statistics.
For Menendez, the video represents a sharpening of his message. Standing next to Kim in the rain on Saturday, he turned to a question that Democrats hope will resonate beyond New Jersey: "Why is it acceptable to Americans that these are our neighbors that are being held in there?"
The answer, he suggested, is that it should not be, and that Republicans who continue to fund ICE should see the facility for themselves.
"We need our Republican colleagues to come in who want to continue to fund ICE," Menendez said. "We need the American people to understand this is not who we are as a country."
Related Articles
• Camden County Bans ICE From County Property Without Judicial Warrant
• DOJ Sues New Jersey Over ICE Mask Ban as State Leaves Law Unenforced
Sources
• Office of Governor Mikie Sherrill, 'Statement by Governor Sherrill on Visit to Delaney Hall,' press release (May 25, 2026)
• Rep. Rob Menendez, video statement, Delaney Hall, Newark (May 23, 2026)
• Rep. Rob Menendez, Facebook posts, Delaney Hall, Newark (May 23–25, 2026)
• Sen. Andy Kim, Facebook posts, Delaney Hall, Newark (May 23–25, 2026)
• GEO Group, investor presentation (February 2025)
• Dante Apaéstegui, NJ Spotlight News, 'ICE triples number of people detained in Delaney Hall' (December 8, 2025)
• NJ Monitor, 'After night of unrest, congressmen say ICE jail is shoddy, should be evacuated' (June 13, 2025)
• Steve Janoski, Jersey Vindicator, 'New Jersey lawmakers condemn conditions inside Delaney Hall detention center in Newark' (May 24, 2026)
• ICE Public Affairs, 'Criminal illegal alien passes away at University Hospital following medical emergency at Delaney Hall Detention Facility' (December 18, 2025)
• Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), U.S. Senate, 'Dignity for Detained Immigrants Act,' reintroduced (January 23, 2026)
• Department of Homeland Security, statements via Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin (January 2025–February 2026)