Airconditioning Failure at Troubled ICE Detention Center in New Jersey
by Jo Ellen Knott
The Jersey Vindicator reported thatthe GEO Group-operated Delaney Hall, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility in Newark, New Jersey, is facing severe infrastructure failures and exposing detainees to dangerous conditions.
In early July 2026, as the worst heat wave in New Jersey in 15 years brought temperatures past 100 degrees, the lockup’s air conditioning failed in one unit, leaving roughly 150 immigrant detainees struggling to breathe in stagnant, humid air. Advocates reported detainees stripped naked to cope with the extreme heat and had to drink discolored, metallic-tasting water.
While ICE claims portable cooling units were deployed, activists dispute this, claiming that neither the agency nor GEO Group provided the units. Some detainees received fans, but these offered little relief and only moved hot air around the area. Without an official explanation, around 120 detainees were bussed out of Delaney Hall for transfers or removals over the Fourth of July weekend, and three detainees were hospitalized for “various medical concerns.”
Delaney Hall has come under intense scrutiny in recent months, with detainees holding a recent hunger strike in protest of the squalid conditions. Beyond broken airconditioning, detainees have raised complaints of unsafe meals, dirty living quarters and bad medical care. According to The New York Times, state health inspectors, who have been granted only limited access to the facility, reported that kitchen staff were not washing their hands and that bathrooms were “extremely unhealthy.”
The privately-run facility was opened as an ICE detention center in May 2025. Resistance against conditions at Delaney Hall first began when detainees refused cafeteria meals; they communicated their complaints with pen and paper, and calls to shut down the facility grew. Protests outside Delaney Hall lasted for weeks, with dramatic clashes between demonstrators and federal agents receiving widespread news coverage.
Sources: The Jersey Vindicator, The New York Times
As a digital subscriber to Prison Legal News, you can access full text and downloads for this and other premium content.
Already a subscriber? Login