Baraka demands access to ICE facility as occupancy dispute simmers

This article has been updated to include comment from GEO Group. This article has also been corrected to reflect that a GEO Group attorney argued no new certificate was needed.

It was a cloudy, drizzly Tuesday morning in Newark, and Mayor Ras Baraka spent most of it peering through a barbed-wire fence. 

The mayor, flanked by aides, fire officials, and protesters, demanded entry into Delaney Hall, a newly reopened migrant detention center located in an industrial district of his city. Newark and GEO Group, the private prison company operating Delaney Hall, are locked in a lawsuit over whether the company has obtained a necessary certificate to use the building.

An Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesperson told the New Jersey Globe this past weekend that ICE started housing detainees in Delaney Hall on May 1. The 1,100-bed facility was initially slated to open in June, and the spokesperson did not say how many detainees are currently housed in Delaney Hall.

In light of the facility’s quick reopening, the mayor arrived at 7 a.m. to demand access for city inspectors, who found several regulatory violations in an inspection last month. In a Monday press conference, Baraka said fire officials had been denied entry to the facility that morning, and he said the facility cannot be allowed to house detainees as long as inspectors are not allowed inside.

But after a couple of hours and several failed attempts to enter the facility, Baraka and city officials left. A fire official left a citation for the company’s refusal to allow inspectors into the premises, and Baraka said he and his team would be back Wednesday.

At the center of the dispute is whether GEO Group possesses the required certificate of occupancy to operate the facility. Newark says changes in occupancy and tenancy mean the company needs to acquire a new certificate of occupancy. Geoffrey Brounell, an attorney for GEO Group, told a judge last week that no new certificate is needed. Arguments on the issue haven’t been made before a judge.

“You can’t just go into a building and open it up without a certificate of occupancy,” the mayor said Tuesday. “You can’t say ‘I have a certificate of occupancy from 20 years ago.’”

In a statement, a GEO Group spokesperson said access to federal immigration facilities is determined by ICE and that the agency has screening protocols in place for guests. The spokesperson accused the mayor and other New Jersey officials of conducting a “politicized campaign” against the federal government’s efforts to deport undocumented immigrants.

“Delaney Hall has a valid Certificate of Occupancy that has been issued by the City of Newark and complies with all the contracted health and safety requirements, and in fact, Delaney Hall operated as a federal immigration processing center for six years under President Obama’s administration, without opposition from local political leaders,” the spokesperson said.

Officials for ICE did not immediately return a request for comment.

ICE has said the facility, which is located near the Newark airport, will help streamline President Donald Trump’s efforts to perform mass deportations across the country. ICE signed a 15-year Delaney Hall contract with GEO Group in February. The contract is expected to be worth about $60 million a year.

Baraka, a progressive candidate for governor, promised in March that he would use his power as mayor to fight the opening of the facility. Until Tuesday, when Baraka walked up to the gates of Delaney Hall, that fight had been playing out in federal court.

Drama ensued at one entrance when Eric Pennington, Newark’s business administrator, tried entering a gate behind a car. GEO Group employees physically blocked him from going past one gate. Baraka later did the same, following a car that he said was driven by an ICE employee. After passing through one gate, the mayor and Pennington spoke with GEO Group employees for more than 10 minutes, to no avail.

Baraka said GEO Group employees claim they need approval from ICE officials to grant access to the mayor, an argument he disputes. Still, the mayor demanded additional transparency from ICE as well as GEO Group.

“I think ICE not responding to us is a little [bit of] cowardice,” the mayor said. “They need to step up and answer to what’s happening here.”

The mayor said there are too many unknowns to ensure the safety of detained migrants and employees in the building. He said there could be women held in the facility—if so, he argued, different plumbing regulations must be met and a new certificate of occupancy must be obtained.

He also said city officials could be put at risk if they’re required to respond to an emergency at the facility but don’t know key details about the building.

The city appeared ready to implement a legitimate blockade. At 6 a.m., a pair of construction vehicles with Newark Department of Public Works insignia lined up outside Delaney Hall. When asked if the city had plans to barricade the facility’s entrances, Baraka told reporters he’s considered it but doesn’t want to put city workers in harm’s way.

“I don’t want to put DPW workers at risk, because these people are dangerous people,” the mayor said. “So if anybody’s going to block it, I will.”

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy passed a law in 2021 barring private-prison companies from operating migrant detention centers in the Garden State. A federal court struck down that law in 2023 after the private prison company CoreCivic challenged the policy. The Biden administration sided with CoreCivic in that case, saying the law could be “catastrophic” to federal immigration enforcement, according to the New Jersey Monitor.

The state is appealing the decision to strike down that law, and a hearing was held in Philadelphia last week. Attorney General Matt Platkin told the New Jersey Globe he believes the law is constitutional, and he deferred comment on Delaney Hall to Newark officials.

Jenny Garcia, a senior communications associate at Detention Watch Network, said her advocacy group has been protesting the use of migrant detention centers since before Trump was elected last November. She said GEO Group officials have accused Baraka and protesters of politicizing the issue of Delaney Hall in the wake of Trump’s election, an accusation she rejects.

“It’s kind of outlandish for GEO Group saying that we’re politicizing this issue when we’ve been out here across administrations,” Garcia said.

Health concerns are especially potent in the Ironbound district of Newark, where industrial plants surround all sides and disconcerting smells waft through the streets. Garcia said the confusion surrounding the facility is an intentional strategy.

“We are in a very contaminated area, and they’re not allowing [the mayor] inside,” Garcia said. “So it is a lot of layers of secrecy, and they know exactly what they’re doing.”

Officials at Delaney Hall initially turned away city inspectors when the lawsuit was first filed last month, but authorities scheduled inspections a couple of weeks later. In a telephone conference on May 1, an attorney for Newark told a federal judge that inspections found a couple of dozen safety issues related to plumbing, fire codes, and electricity.

In a Monday press conference, Baraka said the violations were not “grave.” Delaney Hall operated as a migrant detention center until 2017, and Baraka said it was last used as a halfway house. The mayor said GEO is attempting to use a 2007 certificate for the building.

The Trump administration has also gotten involved in the lawsuit, asking the judge to dismiss the “aggressive” and “legally unjustified” lawsuit.

Newark has been at the forefront of the struggle between Trump’s deportation efforts and immigrant activists. Just days into the second Trump term, ICE agents raided a fish market, detaining both U.S. citizens and undocumented immigrants in the process. Baraka said at the time that the raid was warrantless and accused the agency of violating the Fourth Amendment’s protections against unreasonable searches and seizures.

With Delaney Hall now up and running, the mayor said he plans to keep the pressure on in the courts and the streets.

In eyeshot of the construction vehicles nearly used as blockades, Baraka was asked how he plans to balance waiting for the lawsuit to play out versus taking matters into his own hands. The mayor kept his options open.

“We’ll see,” he told reporters. “Time will tell.”