Sen. Booker Urges Feds To Scrap Plan For Newark Detention Center

NEWARK, NJ — A private prison company’s plan to bring a new immigration detention center to Newark should be tossed out – and so should any others like it, a U.S. senator says.

On Thursday, Sen. Cory Booker – a Newark resident – sent a letter to U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Acting Director Patrick Lechleitner, urging them to reject the GEO Group’s plan to open a new, privately-operated immigration detention center in the state’s largest city.

“The percentage of ICE detainees held in private detention centers is still unacceptably high and we must reverse this trend,” Booker commented, adding that the company’s proposal would be an “insult” to immigrant communities and activists in New Jersey.

Nearly three years ago, state legislators passed a landmark law that bans prisons from making deals with ICE to hold potential deportees, a move that advocates cheered as a major win. But since then, the law has been challenged in court by private prison corporations that allege it is “unconstitutional.”

One of them – the Geo Group – has filed a lawsuit against New Jersey state officials, seeking a way around the law in an effort to house up to 600 immigrant detainees at a detention center it owns in Newark. See Related: Prison Company Wants To Bring ICE Detainees To Newark – Despite NJ Ban

That center – Delaney Hall at 451 Doremus Avenue – is located next to the county-run Essex County Correctional Facility. It has contracted to house inmates for the county, some of whom required complex medical and social services because of conditions such as substance use disorders, psychiatric illnesses, chronic health conditions and pregnancy. See Related: Long-Awaited Review Gives Deep Look Into NJ's Largest County Prison

Delaney Hall also previously held up to 450 immigration detainees for ICE from 2011 through 2017, including prisoners from Texas, Louisiana and other states. It’s a source of revenue that the company is seeking to recapture – if it can navigate past New Jersey’s law.

Passed in 2021, the state law bans all prisons in the state – public or private – from making new contracts with ICE to hold federal detainees. Prisons also can’t expand or renew old agreements.

Many advocates alleged that the contracts amounted to accepting “blood money” from the federal government. Essex County’s prison – which held a contract with ICE at the time – was a frequent target of their protests. Eventually, county officials chose to nix their controversial deal with the feds, fully removing all ICE detainees from the Newark prison in August 2021.

New Jersey’s divestment from the business of profiting off federal detainees didn’t come without its challenges, including reports of federal authorities transferring dozens of immigration detainees to “unknown locations,” far away from their families and lawyers. See Related: Deportation Battle Continues For ICE Detainee Transferred Out Of NJ

Another speed bump? Legal battles with private prison companies.

Last year, CoreCivic – a company that runs jails across the nation, including the Elizabeth Detention Center in Union County – filed a federal lawsuit against New Jersey, claiming that its law is “unconstitutional” under the supremacy clause and claiming that it stood to lose about $18 million per year if it was forced to nix its contract with ICE.

CoreCivic argued that New Jersey’s ban presents a “substantial obstacle” to the enforcement of federal immigration law and it should be allowed to continue its deal with ICE – a stance that many immigration advocates opposed.

“New Jersey fought for this bill to become law and we will fight to defend it,” New Jersey Alliance for Immigrant Justice executive director Amy Torres said.

“Corporations, especially ones like CoreCivic, shouldn’t get to bend and break the rules simply because they can’t profit from them,” Torres added. See Related: Only 1 NJ Prison Still Profits From ICE Contracts – It May Stay That Way

Ultimately, a federal judge sided with CoreCivic, ruling that the company could keep housing detainees – a decision that the state has appealed.

Now, another private prison corporation – the GEO Group – is taking a cue from CoreCivic and petitioning the courts to allow it to hold ICE detainees at Delaney Hall.

According to the company’s complaint – shared by the New Jersey Monitor – the GEO Group claims that the law “unlawfully discriminates against GEO in its capacity as a contractor for the federal government because it targets privately contracted immigration detention services, an area under federal control, while New Jersey law allows other forms of privately contracted detention services for non-federal purposes.”

The company pointed to a request for information filed in 2023, through which the U.S. Department of Homeland Security sought to place a detention site in New York or New Jersey, preferably within a 60-mile ground commute from its New York field office.

The announcement set off warning bells among local immigration advocates, who said if ICE ramps up its bed capacity in the Tri-State area, it could also mean more enforcement activities. See Related: ICE May Expand Footprint In NJ/NY, Immigration Advocates Say

The GEO Group responded to the government’s RFI by proposing the use of Delaney Hall – which is less than five miles from ICE Newark’s busy field office. See Related: ICE In NJ Deported 500 People From Country In 3 Months

CORY BOOKER: ‘VIOLENCE, NEGLECT, ABUSE’

On Thursday, Booker alleged that private prison companies across the nation have a track record of human rights abuses – and the GEO Group is among them.

“At facilities owned and operated by Geo, immigrants routinely report experiencing violence, medical neglect, sexual abuse, malnourishment, poor living conditions and retaliation when they try to report these abuses,” the senator wrote in his letter to federal officials.

Booker continued:

“In March 2024, a man died after being placed in solitary confinement for at least 811 consecutive days in a GEO-owned immigration detention facility in Washington State. At other facilities operated by GEO, the company has been credibly accused of medical neglect, forcing detained people to work, and retaliating against detained people for refusing to work. In March of 2023, hundreds of people detained in a GEO-owned facility in Louisiana began a hunger strike, alleging that the facility lacked cleaning supplies, had showers covered in mold, and that running water had a ‘green tint.’”

“According to ICE’s Acquisition Planning Forecast System, ICE intends to enter into an ‘indefinite’ contract for detention services in a facility that would house up to 600 non-citizens,” Booker said.

If the Geo Group gets its way, it would mean a “significant escalation” in the population of detained non-citizens in private detention centers in New Jersey, he said.

“A new contract would also serve as an insult to immigrant communities and advocates in New Jersey and around the country who have fought tirelessly to document the human rights abuses at private detention centers and repeatedly pushed the Biden Administration to detain fewer people in more humane settings,” Booker added.

• See Related: Slavery Still Exists In America’s Prisons, New Jersey Senator Says
• See Related: Build A New Youth Prison In Newark? ‘Not Happening,’ Mayor Says

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