Over the course of two tense weeks outside the Delaney Hall immigration detention facility in Newark, protesters have periodically clashed with federal agents and New Jersey state troopers, and more than 80 people have been arrested.
Most of the protesters have come out to support detainees and oppose President Trump’s immigration crackdown, but some have demonstrated in support of it.
Most of the arrests happened on Sunday after protesters violated a 9 p.m. curfew, which Newark’s mayor had declared after a fire was set on a roadway outside the facility.
What is Delaney Hall?
It is one of the largest immigration detention centers in the eastern United States and has been a magnet for protests against the crackdown, going back to last year. It holds more than a thousand people, and hundreds are detained there at any given time.
How many people have been arrested?
At least 87 protesters have been arrested since last Tuesday, with 61 being arrested on Sunday night after curfew. After no one was arrested on Monday or Tuesday of this week, Newark’s mayor, Ras Baraka, lifted the curfew.
What charges are protesters facing?
Seventeen people arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents from May 26 through May 29 were charged with assaulting and impeding federal officers, including by punching, kicking and biting them, according to the Department of Homeland Security, ICE’s parent agency.
Five people arrested on Friday night were charged with disorderly conduct and obstruction of justice and one with disorderly conduct and endangering another person, the New Jersey State Police said. On Saturday, two people were charged with disorderly conduct and obstruction of justice and one with weapon possession, the state police said.
The protesters arrested on Sunday were charged with riot, resisting arrest and curfew violation, the Newark police said.
The New Jersey public defender’s office, which is representing protesters arrested on Sunday night, said that all of the complaints they had examined so far included both fourth-degree riot and resisting arrest. The riot charge is an indictable offense — New Jersey’s equivalent of a felony — and carries a maximum sentence of 18 months in prison. The resisting arrest charge is a disorderly persons offense, New Jersey’s equivalent of a misdemeanor.
Ben Van Meter, a lawyer for the public defender’s office, said that of the dozens of complaints he had examined, all had only boilerplate language listing the offenses said to be committed by the crowd collectively, without offering detail on what any individual is accused of doing. He said this left the cases against the protesters weak.
“The police have not made out the barest minimum of probable cause,” which requires listing both the specific behavior that constitutes an offense and evidence that the person charged was the one who committed it, Mr. Van Meter said.
Did the protesters go to jail?
The head of the public defender’s office, Jennifer Sellitti, said the people arrested on Sunday were held at the Essex County Correctional Facility for more than 24 hours, because the Newark police were slow to process them. Typically, she said, people charged with similar offenses are just issued a summons immediately and released. Those arrested on Sunday were given summonses and released on Monday night.
“Nobody should have been held for so long and just released on a summons,” Ms. Sellitti said. “That was unnecessary and really not something that happens very often.”
The Newark police did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
What has the governor said about the protests?
New Jersey’s Democratic governor, Mikie Sherrill, joined protesters on Memorial Day after she said she was denied access to the center to see the conditions the detainees were being held in. “No matter what your immigration status is, you shouldn’t be treated with anything less than dignity in this country,” she said.
But after protesters threw objects, set fires and scuffled with the state police and the Newark police on Saturday, Ms. Sherrill called for calm. “Violent, chaotic clashes hurt everyone,” she said, adding that clashes “put the lives of both protesters and law enforcement in danger, they take the focus away from people inside Delaney Hall and their families, and they raise the temperature with ICE.”
Andy Newman has reported from the New York region for The Times for more than 30 years.
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