Visiting Hours to Resume at Delaney Hall Detention Center After Protests

Federal officials will allow visitors back inside the Delaney Hall immigration detention center in Newark, New Jersey, Gov. Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey said Sunday, after a second straight night of clashes between protesters and law enforcement outside the center.

The detention center, which is overseen by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, suspended visitation last week as tensions escalated during protests over living conditions for detainees. The situation reached a boiling point late Saturday when protesters threw projectiles, fought over barricades, set fires and scuffled with officers from the New Jersey State Police and the Newark Police Department, who were there to secure the area.

"Violent, chaotic clashes hurt everyone," Sherrill, a Democrat, said at a news conference Sunday afternoon, adding that three people had been arrested Saturday night. She said the clashes "put the lives of both protesters and law enforcement in danger, they take the focus away from people inside Delaney Hall and their families, and they raise the temperature with ICE."

"I refuse to give ICE an excuse to surge into our communities," she said.

Before the confrontation Saturday night, Sherrill had urged demonstrators to "bring the temperature down" to avoid escalating immigration enforcement operations and endangering the lives of detainees and other immigrants in the state. She also criticized the intrusion of "extremist groups" and demonstrators from outside the state, who she said had been interfering in the protests and distracting from the ultimate goal of improving conditions inside the detention center and eventually closing it.

A standoff Friday night resulted in the arrest of six demonstrators, four of whom had traveled from New York and one from Pennsylvania. The state police had assumed control of the area after negotiating the withdrawal of federal agents in hopes of restoring order.

"To the people coming from out of state to create chaos and dangerous situations, you should not be here," Sherrill said. "You are not helping the people detained at Delaney Hall, you are not helping detainee families and you're certainly not keeping New Jersey safe."

Despite the calls for calm, clashes continued.

Late Saturday, protesters pressed against police barricades and shields, wielded makeshift shields of their own and at times struggled with officers for control of metal fencing. Police later deployed tear gas and flash-bang grenades as they sought to disperse the crowd.

Officers in riot gear formed shield lines outside the detention center, while mounted troopers and officers on foot worked to push demonstrators back.

Around midnight, dozens of state troopers and Newark police officers sealed off Doremus Avenue at the detention center. Officers set up metal barricades, some wearing combat boots and riot helmets, and carrying sidearms and zip-tie handcuffs.

Just after midnight, Newark Mayor Res Baraka issued a curfew covering a half-mile area around the detention center. The restrictions remain in effect nightly from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. until further notice.

A public safety alert announcing the curfew was sent to residents' cellphones at 12:30 a.m.

Clashes have occurred frequently over the past week, with protesters sometimes taunting federal agents. The agents, in turn, have tackled demonstrators, spraying chemical irritants and, in at least one case, beating a protester with a baton across the torso, thighs, knee and calves as he tried to flee.

On Wednesday, some members of a group of demonstrators were arrested, and Thursday night, a 26-year-old man from Morris County bit two agents who were trying to remove him during a scuffle outside the detention center, authorities said. The man, Brendan John Geier, was charged in New Jersey federal court Friday with assaulting federal officers and causing bodily injury. He was later released with limitations and barred from returning to Delaney Hall.

A lawyer for Geier could not immediately be reached Saturday.

Relatives of detainees and immigrant advocates have said that detainees were beaten and doused with pepper spray this past week after some inmates began a hunger strike.

The Department of Homeland Security has denied that there was a hunger strike. The agency also said that there had been a fight involving detainees inside the detention center and that staff members had broken it up. Officials said that detainees who had been affected had been evaluated by medical workers and that no one had been seriously hurt.

On Sunday morning, Sen. Andy Kim, D-N.J., said on CNN's "State of the Union" that the federal government could take several steps to calm the protests, including sending more medical personnel to Delaney Hall amid concerns over conditions inside. "That's something we can fix," he said.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

Copyright 2026 The New York Times Company

This story was originally published May 30, 2026 at 8:43 PM.