By Patrick G.
“The big thing that people need to know is just how horribly the people inside [of Delaney Hall] are being treated. And not only the people inside, but the people visiting them, are just being treated like cattle, like they’re not treated with any amount of respect,” said Payton P., a DSA member from the Essex branch who spends most weekends at Delaney Hall in Newark, an ICE detention center.
“Radical Hospitality” outside a concentration camp
In July 2025, Delaney Hall (operated by the private prison contractor GEO Group) opened its barbed wire-enclosed doors. It currently holds about 1200 individuals. The camp itself is sequestered in an industrial area, wedged between a jail and a refinery, along roads with neglected pavement. Gulls circle overhead, the port of Newark not far away, as children play with sidewalk chalk outside a tent labeled “Radical Hospitality.” These children enter the facility with their families — though they are often turned away for lack of “appropriate” clothing — to visit loved ones caught in the quagmire of a nativist prison-industrial complex.
Activists from a broad coalition of organizations dedicate time operating the Radical Hospitality tent on the sidewalk outside of the prison camp, handing out supplies and doing what they can to increase visibility about this issue. The tent is recent, set up over the winter by Essex County, but local efforts started as soon as the camp had opened.
“A big part of the Eyes on ICE (EOI) at Delaney Hall is mutual aid; it is providing all of the things that the state should be providing,” Payton said. “I mean, obviously, the state should come take a fucking bulldozer to both Delaney Hall and the jail that’s right next to it.”
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has a long-standing presence in Northern New Jersey. The agency itself dates back to 2002, before which its duties were handled by the Immigration Naturalization Service and the United States Customs Service. The Elizabeth Contract Detention Facility (ECDF) has been operating for several decades, and the ambitions of the United States to expand its carceral domain have existed far before the creation of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
The fight comes to Roxbury
However, the current state of affairs over the past several years has created a humanitarian crisis, as DHS continues expanding its immigrant kidnapping operations. These “detention facilities” amount to no less than concentration camps in which people are stored like packages in a warehouse. In February, the township of Roxbury, NJ announced that DHS had purchased such a warehouse from Dalfen Industrial for twice its assessed value with the aim of converting it into a prison camp. Modest estimates expect this facility to hold around 1500 detainees, but realistically, it will have capacity for 4500 given its vast area and DHS’s contempt for humane living conditions.
“It’s a pretty solidly red area in a relatively blue state,” said Skylands DSA member and lifelong Roxbury resident Matt B.
The all-Republican town council has voiced their opposition to the warehouse deal1, though more on NIMBY grounds than anything remotely resembling a moral compass. Matt continued, “I’ve been hearing more sentiment about [the ICE presence], and it’s honestly turning negative.”
Go to Roxbury Town Hall on a Tuesday evening, and you will see a broad coalition of local activists, DSA members included, expressing their concerns about the facility. And if you’re lucky, you may even witness a council member respond with an emotion other than contempt or procedural disdain. It is evident that the abolition of ICE and the prison system broadly is not compatible with their wiring.
Organizing against the expanding carceral state
The abolitionist goals of our organization will not be realized on the whims of locally-elected officials, nor by working within the immigration paradigm many liberals seek to reform. Roxbury Township, alongside the state Attorney General and Governor Sherrill, filed a lawsuit against DHS on environmental and procedural grounds, and are seeking a preliminary injunction to prevent construction that would convert the warehouse into a concentration camp. In 2021, the New Jersey legislature passed a bill banning immigrant detention facilities in the state, after many years of pressure and activism in the wake of Trump’s first term, only to be struck down by the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals last year2. The federal government’s wanton desires will not be abated by passing a bill or coercing a town council to re-appoint its legal representation — at least, not for long.
A rancid air is wafting its way from the chemical corridor of Essex County to the affluent suburbs of Morris County; the damage incurred at the camps in Newark and Elizabeth will be realized four times over if the Roxbury warehouse becomes functional. The scars of human suffering and genocide etched throughout Northern New Jersey make the crumbling views of I-80 seem quaint and idyllic. To oppose this oppression, NNJ DSA voted to create a priority campaign, ICE Out of Roxbury, at its March chapter meeting. Members throughout the chapter (and even the state) monitor activity around the warehouse site through EOI events, attend Roxbury Town Council meetings, and organize strategy meetings.
There is no shortage of opportunity to get involved. The Roxbury campaign is constantly seeking members to observe potential contractors making their way to the site during working hours. On Delaney Hall, Payton offers this: “I think that any DSA member that would want to support this should literally just show up [to Eyes on ICE]. Don’t bring anything, especially if it’s your first time. Just like, go down there, introduce yourself to people — just see what’s going on.”
The true source of the injustices committed by DHS is our capitalist system, which has a vested interest in imprisoning people for profit, and in keeping the working class fighting among itself. Its enforcement against the free movement of people keeps a global proletariat subjugated to the desires of capital. We must not stay silent while kidnappings are rampant on our streets. We must not let our enthusiasm falter when human lives are on the line. This system must be dismantled.
Appendix
“NOW, THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, that the Township Council of the Township of Roxbury, in the County of Morris and State of New Jersey, hereby unequivocally opposes the conversion of existing industrial warehouses within the Township for the creation of a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement processing facility, or any other facility that disregards the Township’s land use and regulatory ordinances and creates unanticipated burdens upon the Township’s infrastructure, resources and services.”
“In a 2-1 decision, the U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals sided with private prison company CoreCivic, which argued that New Jersey’s 2021 law banning immigrant detention intrudes on federal authority. While New Jersey argued that the law regulates private industry and not the federal government, Judge Stephanos Bibas wrote in the majority opinion that while the law’s text does not apply to the federal government, it nonetheless attempts to prevent the federal government from carrying out a core function.”
Thank you for reading
This article is part of Issue No. 01 of Garden State Socialist, a publication of the North New Jersey chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America (NNJ DSA).
DSA is the largest socialist organization in the United States, with over 100,000 members and chapters in all 50 states. We believe that working people should run both the economy and society democratically to meet human needs, not to make profits for a few.
We are a political and activist organization, not a party; our members use a variety of tactics, from legislative to direct action, to fight for reforms that empower working people.
Join us! dsausa.org/join
Learn more about NNJ DSA
Take action at our upcoming events