On Thursday June 12, 50 prisoners at Delaney Hall, the privately owned ICE detention center in Newark, New Jersey, banded together and pushed down the wall of a dormitory room. Four men managed to escape.
Attorney Mustafa Cetin reported: “Based on what he told me it was an outer wall, not very strong, and they were able to push it down.”
Organizations representing some of the detainees reported that Thursday afternoon’s unrest was started by detainees frustrated over inadequate food, missed meal times and other concerns, including boiling water in the pipes and a lack of family visitation.
The four men that escaped are Franklin Norberto Bautista-Reyes and Joel Enrique Sandoval-Lopez, both of Honduras, and Joan Sebastian Casteneda-Lozada and Andres Pineda-Mogollon, both from Colombia.
Immigration attorney Mustafa Cetin said he spoke Thursday evening to one of his clients detained at Delaney Hall. He said his client told him a group of about 50 detainees protested conditions, like lack of food, and some attacked guards. Some of them pushed down a exterior wall, and escaped to the ground by tying bedsheets together into a rope, he said.
People from the community rushed to the site to show support. On previous evenings, many had gathered outside Delaney Hall for a nightly vigil and were speaking to visiting family members.