Andy Kim

New Jersey’s junior senator and a local congressman described inadequate medical care, poor food and "inhumane treatment" at Delaney Hall, the federal immigration detention center in Newark, after speaking to detainees on Day 2 of a hunger strike. They renewed their calls to shut down the facility.

U.S. Sen. Andy Kim and Rep. Rob Menendez Jr., both Democrats, said they spoke to what Kim said were "dozens, if not 100 or more," detainees on the evening of Saturday, May 23, one day after hundreds of people held in the center said they would refuse food and work until their demands are met.

"Often they were talking about the poor food that they’re getting, really disgusting food, that they’re not getting the medical treatment that they need and deserve," Kim said in a video he posted to X standing outside Delaney Hall in the rain.

"I talked with a pregnant woman who was not getting the care that she needed. I talked with a 18-year-old high school senior who should be at a school, not in this facility there. This place needs a shutdown, and these people need to be able to get out, be back with their families."

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and GEO Group, the private company that operates the facility, did not respond to multiple requests for comment about the alleged conditions or treatment of detainees on Saturday or Sunday.

In a Sunday telephone interview with NorthJersey.com, Kim expanded on the stories he heard, many translated by the 18-year-old, who he said desperately wanted to graduate. Kim said he spoke with a woman with a 4-month-old baby who said she was not allowed to pump breast milk and was permitted to see her infant only once or twice.

Another woman, according to the senator, said she had a miscarriage in Delaney Hall, did not get the medical attention she needed and was ridiculed by the staff, who said she had probably made up the story. Detainees with no connection to Africa were told they would be deported to the Democratic Republic of Congo in the midst of its Ebola outbreak, Kim was told.

The Record and NorthJersey.com could not independently verify the allegations as of Sunday afternoon.

What ICE detainees say

The detainees have called for the release of individuals who are elderly, young, seriously ill or injured. They also demanded that Gov. Mikie Sherrill visit the detention center to discuss protections to keep immigrant communities safe while opening an investigation into the facility.

Sherrill said in a statement on Sunday that she "contacted ICE to gain access to the facility."

"I’m deeply disturbed by reports of the poor conditions at Delaney Hall. Unsafe, inhumane, and unconstitutional living conditions are completely unacceptable. I have long opposed private detention facilities and advocated against them. I will continue to call for the closure of Delaney Hall because of reports like these."

Outside Delaney Hall on Saturday, community organizers concluded an overnight vigil to show solidarity with those inside.

“They are in high spirits,” said Catalina Adorno, an organizer with the advocacy group Movimiento Cosecha. “They are holding strong right now. They want to make sure people know their strike is peaceful. They just want to get attention from the governor. They want to speak to her.”

The strike follows complaints from detainees alleging medical neglect, lack of air conditioning, lack of food, and rotten and spoiled meals. On Saturday, immigrant organizers alleged that a few detainees involved in the strike were targeted for retaliation. One was threatened with solitary confinement, and at least two others had visit time cut to just 5 or 10 minutes, the organizers said.

Delaney Hall opened on May 1, 2025, as a 1,000-bed private immigration detention center, as part of the Trump administration's aggressive push to expand detention capacity.

In response to the complaints, lawmakers have been conducting oversight visits to assess the alleged conditions.

"You have fathers, you have grandfathers, you have mothers, you have grandmothers — that is who ICE is holding in the Delaney Hall right now," Menendez said in another video recorded outside the facility and posted online. "And the clear message was, 'Why are we here? Why are we here? Why is it acceptable to Americans that these are our neighbors that are being held in there?' That’s the message that we hear. That is the message we’re going to come deliver."

Menendez said what he was hearing from ICE and GEO Group officials conflicted with what he has seen during his recent visits to Delaney Hall.

"They keep telling us everyone gets seen within 24 hours of putting in a medical request," Menendez said during a seperate phone interview Sunday. "Everyone inside is telling us something very different, and when you see these people, you see how sick they look. There's people coughing and people that just look physically unwell. There are people who have been waiting weeks and months for medical attention, and they're not getting it."

Kim calls ICE response 'absurd'

In the interview, Kim said one family told him a detained relative has been at a hospital for more than 10 days, but ICE would not reveal to them which hospital it is and what her medical problem is, for "security reasons."

After he raised concerns with ICE, Kim said, officials told him that families could submit a Freedom of Information Act request for a relative's medical records, a process that can take months to years for a response.

"The fact that they just said that to me, like, point blank, without any recognition of how absurd what they're telling me is," Kim said. "They just fall back on the process, the procedures that are supposed to be there, without actually telling me if it's actually happening."

In addition to the conditions within the facility, Kim said, detainees hoped to shine a light on a "judicial process [that] is clearly not fair, clearly not in line with our Constitution, our rule of law."

"They showed me a piece of paper. This judge has 74 cases in front of her in one day. How are they to feel like they're going to have someone actually listen to their circumstance and take them seriously? It makes you really wonder: What is the dynamic there? I was doing the math — that's about six minutes per case."