Nearly 40 women detained inside the Delaney Hall immigration facility in Newark, New Jersey, announced Thursday they are joining a hunger and labor strike that began last month, advocates said. The women, held in unit 1 of the privately run facility operated by Geo Group, released a new list of demands calling on Immigration and Customs Enforcement to release detainees under 21, those with medical conditions, and mothers, and to improve conditions and speed up immigration case processing.
The announcement came one day after President Trump signed a $70 billion spending bill for immigration enforcement agencies, and as immigrants in other detention centers across the country participate in strikes of their own.
On Thursday morning, advocates, religious leaders, and family members with detained loved ones gathered in front of the Delaney Hall facility. “Today, we stand with the women demanding release, safe living conditions, medical care, legal representation, family visitation, safe drinking water and protection from abuse,” said Archange Antoine, a minister with the Clergy Coalition for Liberation. “These are not radical demands – these are demands rooted in basic human rights.”
A group of over 300 men at Delaney Hall launched a hunger and labor strike on May 22, making demands including a meeting with the New Jersey governor, improved conditions, the release of sick and elderly detainees, and faster immigration court proceedings. A few women joined that initial effort, advocates told the Guardian.
Since the May 22 strike began, protesters outside the facility have gathered in support. ICE officers responded by deploying pepper spray and using Tasers and batons, according to reports. New Jersey’s governor and Newark’s mayor later deployed state and local police, who used teargas and arrested dozens in an effort to disperse protesters.
Advocates and detainees have claimed that ICE and Geo Group retaliated against strikers by canceling family visitations, removing communication tablets from units, and transferring detainees to other facilities. Advocates estimate about 90 people were transferred this week.
“We know that engaging in a strike is really hard,” said Catalina Adorno, a volunteer with Cosecha, an immigrant rights organization in New Jersey. “Not just because of what it does to the physical body, but also because we have seen that the guards and that ICE are retaliating against the strikers.”
The Delaney Hall facility opened last year after ICE signed a 15-year, billion-dollar contract with Geo Group. Since its opening, it has faced repeated accusations of substandard medical care, inedible food, and neglectful guards. Multiple oversight visits by members of Congress have found conditions matching detainees’ claims, according to the lawmakers’ accounts.
“We all want our family members home,” a woman whose husband has been detained at Delaney for two months said Thursday. She requested anonymity for fear of retaliation by ICE. “He’s not a criminal. He sacrifices himself every day for his family and for his home.”
Amid the strike and protests, two 18-year-old women detained at Delaney were released, along with all pregnant women, which advocates celebrated as a win.
In a statement, the Department of Homeland Security denied that a hunger strike is taking place at Delaney Hall. “Another day, another hoax about ICE,” a DHS spokesperson said. “There is no hunger strike at Delaney Hall at this time. No detainees are being beaten or abused.” The statement said all detainees are provided with three meals a day, clean water, clothing, bedding, showers, soap, and toiletries, and that it is a longstanding practice to provide comprehensive medical care from the moment an alien enters ICE custody. The statement also encouraged undocumented immigrants to self-deport.
Geo Group did not respond to a request for comment by time of publication.
When the first hunger strike began on May 22, a group of women detained at the facility wrote a letter to the public denouncing conditions inside. The letter, published this week by advocacy groups, states: “Most of the women detained at this center were illegally detained by ICE. We were taken at the entrances of our immigration court check-ins, at our jobs, taking our kids to school.” The letter adds that the treatment they received “is deplorable from screams, racism, and bad medical attention.”
Other hunger strikes have been taking place at facilities around the U.S. In California, detained immigrants at the Adelanto detention center and the nearby Desert View Annex are currently engaged in a strike. DHS is denying that a hunger strike is taking place there, but advocates claim striking detainees have faced retaliation. According to the American Civil Liberties Union, the Northwest detention center in Washington state has had nine separate strikes since 2026 began. Immigrants inside other detention centers in Texas, Pennsylvania, and Michigan have launched hunger strikes since mid-April, the ACLU reports.