NJ Officials Demand Delaney Hall Shutdown; DHS Sec. Mullin Threatens to Pull CBP From Newark Airport; State Health Dept. Denied Full Facility Access

As the Delaney Hall ICE detention crisis entered its second week — with more than 300 detainees on a hunger and labor strike since approximately May 23, 2026, over allegations of rotten food, inadequate ventilation, denied medical care, and guard violence — New Jersey officials escalated calls for DHS to shut down the GEO Group-operated Newark facility. On May 29, Governor Mikie Sherrill called for Delaney Hall's closure, reporting that the New Jersey Department of Health had been denied full facility access during an attempted inspection. Senator Cory Booker formally demanded DHS shut down the facility and open independent investigations into the conditions described by detainees and their attorneys: small food portions that often contained maggots, beatings with batons, chemical spraying of detainees and protesters, and systematic denial of medical care. Senator Andy Kim — who had been pepper-sprayed by federal agents during a May 27 oversight attempt — reiterated his call for Senate hearings. Representative Rob Menendez Jr. joined the shutdown demands, citing the facility's December 2025 death of a 41-year-old Haitian man who died the day after being transferred there. In a provocative escalation that drew national attention on May 28–29, DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin appeared on Fox & Friends and threatened to redeploy U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers away from Newark Liberty International Airport to help ICE manage the Delaney Hall protest outside the facility — which he characterized as 'nothing more than a political stunt by New Jersey sanctuary politicians for fundraising clicks.' Mullin warned: 'That may affect international flights coming in and out of their airport because I'm going to have to pull Customs and Border Protection officers out of being able to process international flights and put them helping our ICE agents.' The threat was broadly condemned: the U.S. Travel Association warned of 'devastating consequences for the travel industry and communities that depend on international visitation,' and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy publicly questioned the proposal as inappropriate. Attorneys for the striking detainees said the hunger strike had largely ended by May 27–28 under medical pressure, but the labor/work strike — detainees refusing to clean, cook, and perform other facility maintenance work — was continuing and effectively shutting down operations. Documented NY on May 29 published accounts from detainees describing the facility as operating in a state of near-collapse, with guards conducting 3 a.m. cell inspections as retaliation for the strike. Family visitation remained suspended.