Essex CountyPublished: May. 27, 2026, 11:47 a.m.By Steve Strunsky | NJ.comJeff Goldman | NJ.comTwo people were arrested during another chaotic night outside Delaney Hall in Newark in which ICE agents pepper-sprayed protesters.ICE officers said they were assaulted by “anti-ICE rioters” who sprayed law enforcement with an unknown chemical substance outside the federal immigration detention facility, according to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin.In a post on X, Mullin said the two people arrested assaulted, resisted and impeded federal officers. Protesters say detainees in Delaney Hall began a hunger strike Friday in an effort to combat what detainees describe as inhumane conditions and retaliation. Clashes between ICE agents and protesters have followed.421/42Protesters face off against ICE Agents at Delaney Hall in Newark on Tuesday. 05/26/2026Eyes on ICE, an advocacy coalition, offered a vastly different account of what took place outside the Doremus Avenue facility Tuesday night into the overnight hours of Wednesday. “It was crazy,” said Kathy O’Leary of Eyes on ICE. “It was like every 15, 20, 30 minutes — pretty frequently — ICE would come out of the facility and pepper spray people and go back in.“O’Leary identified one of the two people taken into custody by ICE as Adam Marshall, a 30-year-old member of the coalition who was acting as a medic.None of the medics were engaging with ICE and were only there to treat people who were pepper sprayed, according to O’Leary. She said ICE agents later “dumped” Marshall on Rutherford Street in Newark, about a mile from Delaney Hall. While the crowd had thinned when O’Leary left around 2:30 a.m. there were still several dozen protesters near the main gate of the facility. O’Leary said she will be back Wednesday. Eyes on ICE plans to maintain a presence outside Delaney Hall as detainees continue to be released.“I don’t know how many more people need to have their heads cracked open and and be kidnapped before people will start to listen that this is not about public safety, ” she said. “This has nothing to do with public safety. They are not law enforcement. They are creating chaos and and sowing fear and, and, and kidnapping our friends and neighbors and our loved ones. And that’s what they did to Adam, and that’s what they did to everybody who’s in Delaney Hall right now.”On Monday, U.S. Sen. Andy Kim (D-NJ) was among those pepper-sprayed. The strike began after weeks of mounting frustration over conditions inside the Newark facility, which is operated by the private prison company GEO Group under contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.Advocates say detainees have refused meals and stopped participating in work programs inside the detention center, where people can earn about $1-$2 a day, as part of their protest.The detained workers are responsible for facility maintenance, food service and sanitation tasks, according to Eyes on ICE. The detainees are not receiving that small amount of money for weeks or months, Eyes on ICE says. On Wednesday morning it was relatively quiet outside Delaney Hall with about two dozen protesters spread over a few locations: the southern entrance to the facility off Doremus Avenue; the northern main entrance, also off Doremus; and a county-erected tent serves as a staging area for protesters along Doremus Avenue, just north of Delaney Hall’s northern entrance.Food and clothing are kept for detainees’ families and protesters in the tent. Protesters were not chanting or otherwise making any organized show of their opposition to ICE and its activities.The barricades that had been set up by protesters over Memorial Day weekend at the northern and southern driveways were gone.The most notable presence was a group of at least 18 ICE officers in fatigues gathered in front of the gate at the southern entrance to Delaney Hall.The northern entrance was comparatively unguarded, with a few black-clad C.E.R.T. security guards standing just inside the sliding, razor-wire-topped gate.At least half a dozen television news trucks and about two dozen passenger vehicles were parked in the right-hand traffic lane on both sides of Delaney Hall. This reduced traffic flow to one lane in each direction in the industrial section of Newark surrounding the facility, which normally accommodates large trucks.”Occasionally, civilian vehicles drove into the facility parking lot at the northern entrance, with the guards sliding the gate open for them.Steve Strunsky covers the City of Newark and other subjects. He has reported, edited, and produced news in New Jersey and New York for over three decades at print, wire service, and broadcast outlets, including...