ICE and GEO Group use pepper spray and force against hunger-striking Delaney Hall detainees

Beginning around May 22, 2026, hundreds of immigrants held at the Delaney Hall Detention Facility — a Newark, New Jersey immigration jail operated by the private prison company GEO Group under contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement — launched a hunger and labor strike to protest custodial conditions. Detainees and their relatives described spoiled food, including worms in meals, scalding showers that caused burns and blisters, non-air- conditioned units, prolonged detention, and the denial of medical care. Their demands included the release of elderly and very young detainees and those with serious medical conditions. Reporters and members of Congress who reached detainees described the strike as a peaceful refusal of meals and facility work.

As the strike continued, facility staff retaliated against participants. Organizers and strike leaders were transferred to other facilities, family visitation was suspended for nearly a week, and on May 28, 2026, officers summoned detainees to a dining hall under the pretext of a negotiation and then used force — pepper spray, batons, and rubber projectiles — in the enclosed room, injuring several people, according to detainee accounts gathered by The Intercept and Newsweek. GEO Group confirmed that staff used "chemical agents" in what it called a response to a "physical altercation," while characterizing the broader reporting as a "politically motivated campaign." New Jersey and New York members of Congress, including Reps. Dan Goldman, Jerry Nadler, and Frank Pallone, visited the facility; some were barred from the unit where the abuses were alleged, and several called for Delaney Hall to be closed.

White House border czar Tom Homan publicly raised the prospect of obtaining a court order to force-feed the hunger strikers, while the Department of Homeland Security denied that any hunger strike was taking place, with a spokesperson calling the reports a "hoax." Both the documented retaliation and the government's contested denial are recorded here so the dispute reaches editorial review and continued reporting rather than being resolved in this entry. This entry covers the detainee-facing abuse inside Delaney Hall; the related external protest-policing facet — federal agents and state police acting against demonstrators and family members outside the facility — is tracked separately under monitoring issue #9 and is a candidate for episode grouping rather than a merge. The closest archived precedent is the May 19, 2026 hunger strike at the GEO Group-operated Adelanto ICE complex in California, a distinct facility and date.