Sen. Andy Kim (D-NJ) told USA Today that he was pepper sprayed outside ICE’s Delaney Hall detention center, in Newark, N.J. when ICE agents escalated against protesters outside.
Kim said he was able to enter the ICE detention center on Monday after he “personally called” Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin to “get his intervention.” New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill had been refused entry.
Detainees have reportedly been on a hunger strike over inhumane conditions at the privately-run facility. Kim said detainees inside told him of “just the inhumane conditions, the lack of medical care,” NJ.com reported. “The senator recalled talking to a woman who had a miscarriage inside the facility but was ‘not given any medical support,’ among other horror stories.” Kim also said that many were nonviolent asylum seekers, not the violent criminals the Trump administration has tried to depict them as.
“Tensions escalated during Sunday when word spread that authorities were planning to move Martin Soto, a detainee who announced the strike, to another facility,” The Guardian reported. “Demonstrators clashed with immigration officers who used batons and pepper spray as they attempted to transfer Soto.”
Kim said he tried to de-escalate the situation but that “ICE just continued on,” according to The Guardian. “’People were 'getting tackled and brought to the ground’ and ICE ‘started pushing through with their vehicles’ and ‘started shooting at us with pepper balls and using pepper spray,’ he said. ‘I tried to do whatever I could standing in the middle to keep people safe.’”
He said he “immediately saw people getting tackled and brought to the ground,” as per USA Today. Kim also told USA Today that his eyes and throat were still burning on Monday night. He blamed the “lawlessness and unaccountability perpetuated by the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress.”
“Instead of engaging with me and others about the poor conditions, ICE sent in an armored vehicle and a line of armed agents that only poured gasoline on the fire,” Kim wrote on Bluesky.
Not surprisingly, the party that professes to stand for personal responsibility is taking none. The Trump administration “insisted the controversy was invented by New Jersey’s Democratic ‘sanctuary politicians’ and claimed there was ’NO hunger strike’ and ‘NO subprime conditions’ at all,” NJ.com said. A DHS spokesperson denied anyone had been “directly struck by pepper ball projectiles," and said “Rioters refused to follow law enforcement commands and continue to obstruct the exit route. Our law enforcement followed their training and used the minimum amount of force necessary to protect themselves, the public, and federal property.”
However, in the video above, you can see Kim getting treated for his burning eyes. As Chris Hayes noted, there are credible reports of the inhumane conditions inside the facility as well as reports that there are people who want to self-deport but are being kept there for months.
Hayes and his guests also pointed out how politically effective protests have been against ICE’s cruelty and inhumane behavior. And yet, even as all signs point to dismal midterms for Republicans, and the Trump administration has kinda sorta softened its public-facing stance, there has been no real policy pivot and no real objection from Republicans.
