2 protesters arrested at Delaney Hall immigration detention center

June 4 (UPI) -- Protesters and police clashed again at Delaney Hall Wednesday night after the city of Newark lifted a 9 p.m. curfew, resulting in two arrests.

People blocked vehicles and chanted "shame on you" after they showed up wearing helmets and gas masks, CBS News reported. They blocked traffic with bicycles and banged on the hood of a car. Police arrested two people.

Demonstrators left a designated protest area that was designed to allow the flow of traffic on the road. But protesters moved to the Delaney Hall entrance. When a vehicle approached the gate, protesters began banging on it, and Newark police helped the vehicle through the gate, NJ.com reported.

"All of a sudden the police were just pushing everyone back," Emily Phillips, a protester at the scene, told NJ. "We started yelling at some ICE vehicles or GEO Group vehicles, and from there the police got pretty aggressive pushing us back."

Newark and the state have filed lawsuits against the GEO Group, the contractors running the facility.

Since May 22, facility detainees began a hunger and labor strike.

Newark police took over enforcement earlier this week after state police clashed with demonstrators and arrested 61 people.

People have been protesting poor conditions inside the facility since Memorial Day weekend with occasional skirmishes with law enforcement and counter-protesters who side with immigration enforcement. The federal government denies that conditions and treatment of prisoners are inadequate.

Liliana Ramos of Plainfield, N.J., told CBS that her husband is detained at the center and that family members want the protesters to remain peaceful. She and other family members of detainees said that violence doesn't help their loved ones on the inside.

Ramos is scheduled to deliver a baby Thursday via C-section. Her husband is a Guatemalan immigrant whose immigration case has been stalled for the last six years. She is pleading for President Donald Trump to release her husband, saying he has lived, worked and paid taxes for almost 20 years.

"I want to tell him please, check his case. They are not criminals, my husband, the rest of the people inside are not criminals. They are hard-working people," she told CBS.

The Department of Homeland Security responded that Ramos' husband will "receive full due process and remain in ICE custody pending the outcome of his removal proceedings. The Trump administration is not going to ignore the rule of law."

New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill defended her decision to use state police to WNYC Wednesday night, saying DHS would send more Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to the state, and she didn't want the protests to end up like Minnesota earlier this year.

"We knew what was coming next, and I refused to let that happen," NJ.com reported she said. "Parents bringing their kids home and getting killed by ICE, mass immigration roundups."

She said the goal was to "get back the focus on the reason the protesters were there in the first place."

Copyright 2026 UPI News Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

This story was originally published June 4, 2026 at 9:43 AM.