DHS Inspection Undercuts New Jersey Delaney Hall Claims
An inspection of the Delaney Hall ICE facility is now at the center of a growing fight between New Jersey officials and federal immigration authorities.
New Jersey Attorney General Jennifer Davenport announced that the state is suing GEO Group Inc., the company contracted by the Department of Homeland Security to operate the facility. The lawsuit came just hours before activists from the Democratic Socialists of America and other far-left groups gathered outside her office.
But the latest unclassified report from the DHS Office of Professional Responsibility, obtained by Fox News Digital, does not line up with several of the claims being made in the lawsuit. According to the report, investigators reviewed 22 standards during an inspection and found the facility in compliance with 17 of them.
The report said, "During the inspection, [the Office of Detention Oversight] assessed the facility’s compliance with 22 standards… and found the facility in compliance with 17 of those standards,".
The attorney general’s office has pointed to reports from media outlets and Democratic members of Congress as the basis for the lawsuit. Those claims include allegations that worms were found in food, toilet paper was not being provided, medical care was poor or missing, and that there was a report of tuberculosis.
Fox News Digital identified five standards that were not met in the August inspection. Those included food services, admission and release procedures, holding room checks, environmental health and safety, and suicide and self-harm prevention. The report said there was ice build-up in freezers, detainees were not fingerprinted upon release, hold room checks were not properly recorded, cleaning equipment was not labeled correctly, and detainees were not monitored for the proper amount of time.
The inspection also recommended that DHS Enforcement and Removal Operations in Newark continue working with the facility to resolve the remaining deficiencies in line with contractual obligations.
DHS quickly pushed back on the lawsuit in a post on X, calling it "This is a frivolous lawsuit," and saying that state health officials had recently inspected the kitchen and left after completing their review.
The dispute comes as Governor Mikie Sherrill and the attorney general face pressure from activist groups over the state’s response to unrest outside the facility. On Monday, Indivisible protested outside Sherrill’s office and called on her to cut ties with DHS and shut down Delaney Hall. On Tuesday, Democratic Socialists of America, Climate Revolution Action Network, State of Liberation Jersey City and other groups protested outside Davenport’s office.
Sherrill said in a post on X that local law enforcement was there to protect agitators from ICE agents, even after state police were deployed and clashes broke out outside the facility.
For now, the Delaney Hall fight is heading in two directions at once: a court battle over conditions at the facility, and a political battle over how New Jersey leaders are handling the protests around it.