By the time I arrived, the scene outside Delaney Hall, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility in Newark, had become quiet. During the week, it had exploded in violence. There were only a handful of protesters standing on Doremus Avenue, a big tent offering refreshments and a place to sit for organizers and visitors, and about a dozen armed ICE agents guarding a driveway entrance. Most of the agents had on tactical gear and had their faces covered and stood with the bored posture of men waiting out a shift of watching over protesters with bullhorns.

The few protesters taunted the agents, who mostly amused themselves. When chants of “No ICE, no KKK, no fascist USA” broke out, one agent started beating his hands to the rhythm and bopping his head. Another protester turned to one ICE agent who appeared to be of East Asian descent and told him he should know better, referencing the U.S. government’s incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II. A few other agents chuckled and called back, “That’s racist!”

At another entrance, reporters clustered around New York Rep. Adriano Espaillat, the first formerly undocumented immigrant to serve in Congress. He had just exited Delaney Hall and declared that the facility needed to be shut down. “The women there are under attack,” he said, referring to reports of a woman who is said to have experienced a miscarriage while detained inside.

Faint chants of “Libertad” were audible from inside the facility. Protesters answered with chants of “Si, se puede.”

Late last week, roughly 300 detainees launched a hunger and labor strike inside Delaney Hall over deteriorating conditions, including inedible meals, insufficient medical care for detainees with cancer or diabetes, poor ventilation, delayed hearings, and pressure to sign papers to self-deport. For months, lawmakers inspecting the facility have corroborated reports of inhumane conditions and called for immediate intervention. (GEO Group and the Department of Homeland Security have both denied the central assertion about poor conditions.) By Sunday and Monday, some of the most violent scenes since the Minneapolis ICE bombardment and protests followed, including an incident in which New Jersey Sen. Andy Kim said he was pepper-sprayed.

The official response from Washington was ridicule. Asked about New Jersey leaders pushing back against ICE operations at Delaney Hall, Trump joked about renaming it “the NICE facility,” and dismissed the demonstrations as staged. “These aren’t protesters,” he said. “These people are fake. They’re all paid for.” Then he defended the facility itself: “We run the finest facilities anywhere in the world of their type,” he........

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