Shut Down Delaney Hall! Solidarity With Striking Immigrant Detainees | Socialist Alternative

Since May 22, hundreds of immigrants detained at Delaney Hall immigration detention center have been on a hunger and labor strike, fighting back against the inhumane conditions inside. Detainees face abhorrent conditions like maggot-infested food, contaminated water, and inadequate medical care, despite rampant outbreaks of flu and COVID in cramped quarters. Delaney Hall—a 1,196-bed facility in Newark, New Jersey—is the largest immigration detention center on the East Coast, run by private prison company GEO Group under a 15-year, $1 billion contract. Nearly 300 detainees signed a letter entitled “SOS,” in which they explained that many of them were detained without judicial warrants during their check-in appointments with immigration officials, while seeking legal status, and are now being “tortured physically and psychologically.” In a later letter, they also explain that “detainees are forced to work, in most cases without pay, or for $1 an hour.” Brutal Repression Slave labor is a major cost cutter for GEO Group, likely saving them millions a year, which is exactly why strikes like this are a problem for the company and for the deportation machine nationwide. ICE and GEO Group guards have retaliated against strikers with brutal violence, with reports of gassing and bloody beating of prisoners. But the hundreds of strikers remain steadfast in their resistance. Among the strikers’ demands are: - An in-person meeting with and facility inspection from Democratic New Jersey Governor Mikie Sherrill - The immediate release of medically vulnerable, elderly, young, and pregnant detainees - Meaningful and fair review of immigration cases and habeas petitions - An end to coerced signing of deportation or voluntary departure papers - The progressive release on bond or parole of all detainees Attempting to break the strike, ICE moved suspected strike organizer Martín Soto to a different detention facility after his wife Gabriela, who is pregnant with their third child, organized a solidarity rally outside. This escalated tensions inside and sparked ongoing protests outside the facility. Inspired by the heroic action of detainees, people have gathered in solidarity, but have been met by indiscriminate violence by ICE agents. Trump and his reactionary regime are firmly to blame for this catastrophe. However, Democratic politicians have been impotent—calling for the closure of the facility but claiming their hands are tied—or worse. After going through the motions of attempting to enter the facility and being denied, Governor Sherrill deployed state troopers on horseback, along with a unit armed with riot shields, rubber bullets, and tear gas to beat back protesters. Taking over crowd control from federal agents, state police relegated the protest to “free speech zones” a half mile away from the entrance, out of sight and earshot of the detainees. Newark Mayor Ras Baraka also instituted a nightly curfew around Delaney Hall, which was violently enforced with dozens of arrests. Governor Sherrill has tried to paint ICE’s departure from outside Delaney as a victory and claimed she wants to “lower the temperature.” In reality, this means using New Jersey state police to take ICE’s place in crushing the protests. Escalate The Struggle ICE was dealt a setback by the Battle of Minneapolis that forced the drawdown of Trump’s operation in Minnesota, but they will continue to terrorize immigrant communities across the country if the movement doesn’t escalate. The movement should draw inspiration from the heroic actions of detainees and protesters supporting them, but to defeat ICE we need to hit the capitalist system where it hurts them. To do this, the detainees’ labor strike must be expanded to other sectors of the economy—to organize mass strike actions like we saw in Minneapolis on January 23 which could petrify the capitalist class and ultimately bring this system to its knees. Organized labor has a key role and responsibility to play in this necessary escalation. Democrats will bellyache about the power they don’t have to shut down Delaney, but this is where real power lies, and the Democrats want absolutely nothing to do with it. The demands of the courageous strikers should be amplified across the country and serve as a spark for the immigrants rights movement. The majority of working people oppose Trump’s terror against immigrants, from the truckers passing Delaney Hall to coworkers at our jobs. Turning that into action is the critical next step. Workers born in the US will always have so much more in common with immigrants who are detained than we will ever have with billionaires and the capitalist class. We need a united working-class fightback to win the detainees’ release, to shut down Delaney Hall, to end the barbaric detention system and abolish ICE, to end deportations, and to win guaranteed citizenship rights for all.