ICYMI: Newark mayor says city is suing ICE to block immigrant detention center

By Steve Strunsky | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

Newark Mayor Ras J. Baraka says his administration is suing [full complaint here] to block the opening of an immigrant detention center in Newark, asserting that its operators failed to obtain construction permits and refused to submit to local inspections in violation of city and state laws.

“Today, the City of Newark is filing a complaint with Essex County Superior Court because ICE has opened their Delaney Hall facility without following proper building safety protocols,” Baraka said in a statement Monday afternoon, referring to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. “They failed to give city officials access to conduct inspections required under municipal ordinances and state code. This violates city and state law.”

He said city officials were told that construction work was going on inside the privately-owned jailhouse on Doremus Avenue without required permits.

“The Department of Engineering imposed a stop work order to halt any and all construction on the site today,” Baraka said. “Two ICE officials and the GEO Group facility director on site were made aware of the violations.”

The GEO Group is the Florida-based private prison and re-entry company that owns the Newark facility, Delaney Hall, and is set to operate it under a 15-year contract with ICE worth $1 billion.

The mayor’s office did not provide copies of the Superior Court complaint or the stop-work order, which name the company. [Complaint is now available here]

“The complaint is against the GEO Group, who is opening the ICE facility based on the contract they have with ICE,” said the city’s communications director, Crystal Rosa.

Christine Cuttita, a spokesperson for ICE’s Newark regional field office, declined to comment, citing the potentional litigation. GEO did not respond to requests for comment.

Neither ICE nor GEO has said publicly just when Delaney Hall would begin housing detainees, and it was unclear Monday even to immigrants’ rights advocates whether it had begun doing that.

“We don’t know,” said Diego Bartesaghi, a spokesman for Make the Road New Jersey, one of the state’s leading advocacy groups.

Baraka’s Monday announcement follows social media posts over the weekend on behalf of a Flemington man asserting he was arrested and taken into custody by ICE under what his supporters said were false pretenses.

Supporters said Kalil Daoud, a 20-year resident of New Jersey, was at the Newark office of the Intensive Supervision Appearance Program, a kind of supervised release program within the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, ICE’s parent agency, for immigrants seeking legal residency.

“Karim was detained after an appointment to pick up documents to fulfill his work authorization requirement and to remain in the United States, as he has since he has been in this country,” states a post on a Free Karim Facebook page that has attracted 1,800 followers since it was created March 18. “He was informed that there had been a mistake and he had to go to ICE. Once at the Newark ICE facility, Karim was apprehended.”

“Karim is not a criminal,” the post adds, a reference to ICE’s assertion that its priority is to deport immigrants charged with criminal offenses. “He has no criminal history at all. Karim has always worked and paid taxes in the United States. Anyone who knows Karim knows his undying love for the United States, that he is a loving husband, an incredibly devoted father, and a well-loved and upstanding community member.”

Daoud’s supporters fear he will be flown to another detention facility far from New Jersey, limiting contact with his family or a local lawyer, as the agency has done with Mahmoud Khalil, a legal U.S. resident and pro-Palestinian activist who was held in Elizabeth before being moved to Luisiana.

ICE announced in April 2024 under then-President Joe Biden that it was negotiating with the GEO Group to open what would be New Jersey’s second immigrant detention center, after its one existing facility in Elizabeth, sparking opposition from several fellow Democratic elected officials and immigrants rights advocates.

Nearly a year later, ICE and GEO announced last month that they had reached a deal to open Delaney Hall as the nation’s first immigrant under President Donald Trump’s second administration.

Baraka, who is among Democrats running for governor in the June primary, appeared at a rally outside Delaney Hall earlier this month protesting the center’s opening and calling for passage of state legislation, the Immigrant Trust Act, that would codify New Jersey attorney general guidelines limiting information sharing by state and local law enforcement agencies with ICE.

State law had previously barred state, county, municipal or private facilities in New Jersey from being used to detain immigrants, though the ban on private facilities was overturned.