Four men escaped from an immigration detention center in Newark after the dismal conditions inside precipitated an uproar among detainees, leading to a lockdown of the facility and a manhunt for the fugitives.
The unrest stemmed from days of anger about meager and sporadic meals and overcrowding that forced some detainees to sleep on the floor, lawyers and relatives of the detainees said. On Thursday afternoon, detainees smashed windows, doors and security cameras. Four men fled through a weak exterior wall, according to local and federal officials.
The detention center, known as Delaney Hall, has emerged as a contentious centerpiece of President Trump’s immigration crackdown since it opened in May, drawing protests and opposition from local officials that led to the arrest of Newark’s mayor during a volatile clash with federal agents outside its gates last month. A local congresswoman was charged with assault after the melee.
The privately run detention center quickly became filled with hundreds of immigrants picked up across the Northeast, including nearby New York City. It has expanded the government’s detention capacity as agents have ramped up the arrests of migrants in homes, courthouses and federal offices in recent weeks.
The Department of Homeland Security issued a statement on Friday offering a $10,000 reward for information on the escapees. The agency said that four detainees had “breached security at Delaney Hall.”
But the agency disputed reports of widespread disruption. “This privately held facility remains dedicated to providing high-quality services, including around-the-clock access to medical care, in-person and virtual legal and family visitation, general and legal library access, translation services, dietician-approved meals, religious and specialty diets, recreational amenities, and opportunities to practice their religious beliefs,” the statement said.
The first details about what happened inside Delaney Hall on Thursday trickled out through phone calls that migrants placed to lawyers and family members, expressing hunger, fear and desperation. The initial accounts painted a picture of an overcrowded and mismanaged facility where conditions had been deteriorating for days and had reached a boiling point, crystallizing the worst fears of the facility’s critics.
Senator Andy Kim, Democrat of New Jersey, who visited the facility on Friday, said that officials at Delaney Hall told him that the four men escaped by tearing down a shoddily constructed wall that “was essentially just dry wall with some mesh inside” and by jumping over the fence of a parking lot.
Mr. Kim said that officials had been using the cafeteria to move detainees around, affecting their steady access to food and sparking the unrest. He said that officials from the GEO Group, the private prison company that runs Delaney Hall, were conducting a security review of the breach.
“They were alluding to the idea that they were going to move all detainees out of this facility,” Mr. Kim said in a news conference outside the facility. “Everything that they told me was that, yes, it’s an insecure facility. They do not have confidence in this facility, which is why they’re doing this security review.”
He added, “This is a symbol for the brokenness of the Trump administration plan when it comes to immigration.”
Homeland Security identified the escapees as Franklin Norberto Bautista-Reyes of Honduras, who the agency said had been arrested on aggravated assault, terroristic threats and other charges; Joel Enrique Sandoval-Lopez of Honduras, who the agency said was arrested on weapons charges; Joan Sebastian Castaneda-Lozada of Colombia, who the agency said was arrested on burglary, theft and other charges; and Andres Pineda-Mogollon of Colombia, who was arrested on burglary charges.
The agency said the men had entered the country illegally in recent years or had overstayed their visas. All had been arrested by the police in New Jersey or New York, the agency said.
The ruckus at Delaney Hall appeared to begin at around 4 p.m. on Thursday after agitation over a missed lunch. Shortly after, a number of migrants began using the facility’s phones to call family members and lawyers, with some saying that they feared for their lives and others urging them to call the press and the police.
“People were hungry and got very angry and started to react and started to rebel against what was going on in the detention center,” said Ellen Whitt, a volunteer who works at DIRE, an emergency immigration hotline. A DIRE staff member received a call about 6 p.m. from one detainee, Ms. Whitt said, and “when we were on the phone with him, we could hear screaming and yelling in the background.”
The detainee said that people were trying to break windows and that, at one point, guards seemed to have abandoned their posts, she said.
A woman who lives in Elizabeth, N.J., said she got a call from her partner, who has been detained at Delaney Hall since early last month, at around 4:30 p.m. He was crying, she said, and described rising tension within the facility linked to frustration over food.
He had arrived in the country at 15 from Guatemala, she said, and is challenging an order of deportation. The woman, who did not want to be identified because she feared it would lead to retaliation against her partner, said she told him to close the door to the 10-bunk dorm room where he is housed and to kneel on the floor to avoid a conflict if officers entered.
Masked officers carrying plastic handcuffs and pepper spray could be seen entering the facility just after 7 p.m. Thursday, and people standing nearby reported smelling a pungent odor. The commotion drew protesters to the facility’s gates who sought to barricade the entrance of the facility.
On Friday morning, officials at the detention facility told immigration lawyers with clients at Delaney Hall that phone calls and visits had been suspended. The lawyers were told they should check back next week.
“We have no idea what is happening with our clients right now,” said Karla Ostolaza, the managing director of the immigration practice at Bronx Defenders.
Relatives of the detainees, some of whom had traveled from as far as Georgia, crowded the facility’s gates on Friday, searching for answers.
Cecilia, 46, who asked to be identified by her first name, showed up to look for her brother, José, 40, who called her at 5:44 p.m. from inside Delaney Hall on Thursday, saying that he feared for his life.
“He told me he was scared and didn’t know what would happen to him,” she said. “People were desperate, breaking doors, banging on walls.”
The chaos at Delaney Hall comes as Mr. Trump has accelerated his immigration crackdown, leading to reports of overcrowded conditions at some facilities, including at the temporary holding cells at ICE offices in New York City. A number of immigrants who have been arrested in immigration courts and ICE offices in the city have been transferred to Delaney Hall, which is a 30-minute drive from the ICE offices in Lower Manhattan.
Delaney Hall is run by one of the country’s largest private prison companies, the GEO Group, which has a $1 billion contract with the Trump administration to hold as many as 1,000 migrants at a time at the facility, which is near Newark Liberty International Airport.
On Friday, the company said it was working with law enforcement officials to apprehend the fugitives and investigate the escape. “The safety and security of the Delaney Hall Facility and our neighbors in the local community is our top priority,” the company said.
GEO Group has been the subject of several lawsuits, investigations and incidents over living conditions at its correctional facilities and migrant detention centers. In the run-up to last year’s presidential election, GEO Group executives said that they expected Mr. Trump’s re-election to drive up demand for empty beds at detention centers the company runs for ICE.
Democratic officials in New Jersey have opposed the opening of Delaney Hall, leading to a lawsuit, protests and a volatile clash outside the facility that led to the arrest of Newark’s mayor, Ras J. Baraka, and assault charges against Representative LaMonica McIver, a New Jersey Democrat. Trespassing charges were ultimately dropped against Mr. Baraka. Ms. McIver, who has maintained her innocence, is scheduled to be arraigned on Monday.
On Thursday, amid the unrest, relatives with appointments to visit detainees in Unit 4 of the facility said that they had not been permitted inside to visit. Many were still waiting out front when a fire truck and then police vehicles from several agencies, including the Newark Police Department and the Essex County Sheriff Department, pulled up.
“They weren’t letting visitors in,” said Raymond O’Neill, a Newark resident, who has joined regularly with other activists outside the facility.
After the sun set, a K-9 unit and agents with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, as well as officers from the Hudson County Sheriff’s Office, began arriving as protesters stood in front of the facility’s gate, as if to block entry or exit by the authorities.
Just before 10 p.m., some members of the crowd dragged plastic construction barricades toward the gate. Soon after, groups of protesters began linking arms, blocking a van and an S.U.V. from exiting through the gate. The vehicles left after the crowd was dispersed by officers who used pepper spray.
In recent days, reports about unsanitary conditions inside began to percolate among immigration lawyers and activists.
Francisco Castillo, a Dominican immigrant who has been held at Delaney Hall since last week, said detainees were being served dismal meals at irregular hours. They often received small cartons of expired milk for breakfast and dinners were sometimes not served until about 11 p.m., he said.
“Every day is a disaster with the food here,” Mr. Castillo, 36, who was detained by ICE at an immigration courthouse in New York City on June 4, said in Spanish.
Raúl Vilchis contributed reporting.
Luis Ferré-Sadurní is a Times reporter covering immigration, focused on the influx of migrants arriving in the New York region.
Tracey Tully is a reporter for The Times who covers New Jersey, where she has lived for more than 20 years.
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