WASHINGTON — Republicans on Capitol Hill and in the Trump administration are leaning on two words to win support for their hardline immigration bill: Delaney Hall.
In speeches and in interviews, GOP lawmakers and officials cite protests outside the privately run immigrant detention site in Newark to bolster the case for their $70 billion legislation.
“For days, far-left rioters have assaulted law enforcement outside Delaney Hall,” Sen. Marsha Blackburn, a Tennessee Republican, said Wednesday, urging passage of the bill to fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection.
“It’s all paid-for protesters,” President Donald Trump said, without evidence, at a recent Cabinet meeting when asked about Delaney Hall, where detainees said guards have abused them. “These aren’t protesters. These people are fake.”
“We see what is going on in New Jersey. It is despicable,” Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana said Tuesday. Protestors have cursed, threatened, hit, bit, scratched and spat at federal immigration agents, he said. “We need to vote to fund Border Patrol and ICE. These men and women are running out of money.”
Booker, Kim rebuffed
At 4:51 a.m. Friday, the Senate voted 52-47 to pass the legislation after a marathon voting session where Democrats tried largely without success to amend the bill. New Jersey Senators Cory Booker and Andy Kim, both Democrats, voted against the legislation. The House is expected to pick it up this week.
Booker and Kim offered amendments to rewrite the bill (S. 2), including language to increase scrutiny of the Department of Homeland Security, the umbrella federal agency for immigration policy. The amendments were voted down.
Three Republican senators in tough reelection campaigns — Susan Collins of Maine, Dan Sullivan of Alaska and Jon Husted of Ohio — voted with Democrats to remove a $1.8 billion payout fund for Trump’s political allies.
The administration proposed that money — for now frozen in political limbo — for rioters who sacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Since detainees began a hunger and labor strike inside Delaney Hall in late May, the streets outside the complex at 451 Doremus Ave. have become grounds for pro-Trump and anti-ICE demonstrations.
Exchanges have gotten intense and personal, as photojournalist Thomas E. Franklin, who shot the scene, noted for NJ Spotlight News.
“On a day of glorious spring weather, Americans’ deep divide on immigration policy was on full display,” Franklin said.
‘Wept in fear’
The state of New Jersey last week sued Geo Group Inc., a private and politically connected publicly traded company operating Delaney Hall under a 15-year, $1 billion contract with the U.S. government .
The head of ICE is a former GEO Group employee, David Venturella.
In its complaint, filed by Attorney General Jennifer Davenport in Superior Court, New Jersey demanded that state health inspectors be allowed broad access to the facility.
A person detained at Delaney and diagnosed with tuberculosis was brought to University Hospital in late May, according to the lawsuit.
People at Delaney are suffering, according to elected Democrats, immigration lawyers and family members. About 70% of them do not have criminal records, according to federal data.
“Injustice and suffering are visible in plain sight. Pregnant women writhe in pain without care,” Rep. Analilia Mejía (D-11th) said in a floor speech, recounting a recent visit. “An injured man wept in fear for his life, and more alarming, the staff of this facility are unprepared and unable to care for those in their custody.”
No Holiday Inn
At his Senate confirmation hearing in March, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin told Kim he would follow oversight laws that govern how the department operates.
“We will operate within those statutes,” said Mullin, an ally of Trump’s and a former Oklahoma senator. “Everybody deserves to be treated with a dignified hand.”
Mullin said detainees could leave the U.S. if they don’t like the food. “They can go back to their country and get whatever food they want,” he told reporters. “The fact is, we’re giving them the calories they want. This isn’t Holiday Inn.”
In its latest budget request to Congress, Mullin’s department moved to abolish the Office of the Immigration Detention Ombudsman, a small unit that can dispatch staff to investigate detention sites like Delaney.
