“I certainly didn’t see anything at Delaney Hall that gives me a sense that things have changed since Minnesota,” Andy Kim told me.

The New Jersey senator, a first-term Democrat, drew headlines Monday after he and other protesters were pepper-sprayed by ICE agents during a rally outside Delaney Hall, a private prison in Newark, New Jersey that ICE has repurposed to detain immigrants—nearly 900 as of early April, according to agency data reviewed by NBC News.

ICE is holding “a man who has Stage 3 lung cancer,” Kim told me. He wants to “spend his final months… with his family. But they just won’t let him go.”

Kim joined advocates, organizers, community members, and the families of those detained at Delaney during ongoing protests condemning the horrific conditions inside—including the dismissal of essential medical attention, the lack of food, and the absence of air conditioning.

Early that afternoon, ICE agents swarmed people who had gathered at the entrance—a DHS spokesperson claimed there were approximately 125 protesters outside the building—some of whom had installed barricades, and many of whom later formed a human chain before ICE deployed chemical suppressants. ICE agents have mounted numerous further attacks on protesters throughout the week, charging and striking them with batons and driving vehicles into the crowd; some protesters reinforced their barricades with cement blocks in response.

BREAKING: ICE deploys PEPPER BALLS and Pepper Spray at Anti-ICE protesters, Agents rushed into their vehicles and exited – Delaney Hall Detention Center in Newark NJ pic.twitter.com/H12vSj6bHE

“There’s an 18-year-old high school senior in there who just wants to go to prom and graduation,” Kim told me in an interview. “There was a man who has Stage 3 lung........

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