On Thursday night, federal immigration thugs violently attacked protesters and journalists outside the Delaney Hall detention center in Newark, New Jersey, swinging batons, deploying pepper spray and arresting at least six people in an effort to break an ongoing blockade in support of 300 immigrant detainees on hunger and labor strike inside the facility.
In video posted on social media, it is not protesters, but ICE thugs who are initiating and escalating the violence. One agent is seen kicking a protester into a moving semi-truck, with the protester’s foot appearing to get caught under the wheel as they fall to the ground. Unconfirmed social media reports indicate the person suffered a major bruise.
Reporters at the scene said federal agents deliberately targeted cameras in an effort to prevent documentation of the assault. Photographer Mostafa Bassim wrote that an ICE agent struck his camera “with his baton using full force,” snapping the lens in half, despite Bassim being “clearly identified as press.”
Some 300 immigrants inside the facility have been participating in a hunger and labor strike since last Friday. As in US prisons, immigrants held inside detention facilities are often expected to perform labor to keep the facility operational, some for as little as a dollar a day, if that. While immigrants slave away inside Delaney Hall, the government is paying GEO Group $1 billion to operate the facility.
Hellbound and Down 