by Luis Feliz Leon | May 29, 2026 | Article, ICE, immigration, labor, Politics and Movements: US, Prisons and Policing, Reprint
This story originally appeared in Labor Notes on May 29, 2026. It is shared here with permission.
On a patch of sidewalk on a busy industrial corridor in Newark, federal agents with rifles, metal batons, flak vests, and balaclavas faced off against unarmed activists with cardboard signs and a bullhorn. Detained workers could be heard on the soccer field behind the prison walls, shouting in Spanish, “¡Libertad!” (Freedom!)
Since May 22, 300 of them are on a work stoppage and hunger strike. Over video chat, one worker told the crowd outside that they had stopped eating and working for as little as $1 an hour (or no pay at all) to demand an improvement in their living conditions. “But that’s not all we demand,” he said. “We are also doing this to demand freedom. We’re not treated like people. We’re treated like animals.”
The hunger strikers are demanding to meet with the governor, the release of young and elderly detainees and all medically vulnerable people, and ultimately, freedom for all.
For months a group of activists with the ICE Out of NJ coalition, which includes the immigrant rights group Cosecha, the Catholic advocacy group Pax Christi, and the worker center New Labor, has been protesting outside Delaney Hall, a 1,000-bed privately owned detention center where immigrants, mostly Latino, are jailed without due process.
Families and lawyers of the detainees report that Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and guards with the GEO Group, the private-prison contractor, have been denying them medical care, offering them food swarming with worms, and refusing them bail bond or access to their lawyers. Many were snatched from construction job sites, or still wearing their service-industry work clothes;
by Sasha Abramsky | May 29, 2026 | ICE, immigrant labor, Los Angeles, News, UNITE HERE, World Cup
As the World Cup nears, Los Angeles’s service workers — the people who staff hotels and keep the restaurants and bars going inside the city’s big stadium — have threatened to go on strike if the tournament becomes hunting grounds for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). They have good reason to be worried. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has indicated that it may not routinely…
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by Shireen Akram-Boshar | May 28, 2026 | Article, ICE, immigration, Politics and Movements: US, Prisons and Policing, Reprint
This article was originally published by Truthout on May 26, 2026. It is shared here under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) license.
Protests erupted on Sunday night outside of the Delaney Hall immigrant jail in Newark, New Jersey, when Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) moved to transfer a strike leader from the jail.
Some 300 detainees launched a hunger and labor strike on Friday in protest of the conditions at the ICE jail. On Sunday, activists and family members learned that the jail was preparing to move Martin Soto, one of the detainees who had announced the strike.
Gabriela Soto, Martin’s wife, saw ICE agents loading Martin into a van, and ran to block the van that held her husband from leaving the site. Other demonstrators joined in blocking the van from leaving the facility, and forced it back to the detention facility. Protestors formed a blockade for hours to prevent Martin Soto from being moved out of the site.
“Free Martin!” the protestors chanted. “Free them all!”
Later, around 1 am on Monday, ICE agents began to move a caravan of vehicles out of the facility, and protestors again attempted to block the vehicles from leaving. ICE agents then shoved aside protestors, pushing them against the sidewalk and against cars, and pepper sprayed at least one protestor.
A Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spokesperson announced on Monday that after “ICE successfully dispersed approximately 70 agitators” it succeeded in transferring Martin to another facility.
Since the start of the hunger strike, family members and supporters have gathered outside of the detention center. Among others, a 10-year-old child spoke about her father, who is currently being imprisoned in the
by Kelly Hayes | May 28, 2026 | CoreCivic, Donald Trump, Fascism, ICE, immigration, immigration jails, Interview, Organizing, Podcast
“The immigration camp, it really depends on a lot of local infrastructure. It is not this untouchable federal abstraction. It is up to us, neighbors, community members, and we have the actual power to shut them down,” says journalist John Washington. In this episode of Movement Memos, Washington joins host Kelly Hayes to discuss his book How to Close a Camp: Dispatches from the Fight Against…
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by Amy Goodman | May 27, 2026 | Delaney Hall ICE Jail, due process, Hunger Strike, ICE, immigration, Interview, New Jersey
Around 300 immigrants detained at the Delaney Hall ICE jail in Newark, New Jersey, have been on a hunger and work strike since Friday to protest inhumane conditions and due process violations. Delaney Hall is operated by the private prison company GEO Group. Since the hunger strike was launched, immigration advocates have been staging a solidarity protest outside Delaney Hall to promote the…
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by Glen Stellmacher | May 22, 2026 | ICE, intelligence agencies, Mass Surveillance, News, Seattle, Seattle Police, terrorism
In Seattle, Facebook, Amazon, real estate management, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) all share one thing in common: membership to Seattle Shield, an exclusive intelligence-sharing network operated by the Seattle police. The system highlights how secretive public-private networks of information-sharing have permeated law enforcement intelligence collection in Seattle and across…
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