Sen. Andy Kim (D-N.J.) on Monday was pepper-sprayed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers while demonstrators gathered outside an immigration detention facility in Newark, N.J.
Videos circulated online of mutual aid volunteers pouring water into Kim’s eyes while he held an ice pack in his hand. One video showed Kim speaking directly to ICE agents surrounding a detained individual, with another showing him speaking with demonstrators.
Kim, later Monday, said he saw “chaos inside and outside” of Delaney Hall, the detention center where around 300 migrants are holding a hunger and work strike against the center’s conditions.
“Detainees protesting the lack of due process, the disgusting food and poor treatment while their families and advocates stood outside calling for help,” he wrote on the social platform X. “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 said he saw ICE agents tackle and restrain demonstrators, while “agents fired pepper balls and spray into the crowd.”
“What I witnessed and experienced today was shameful,” the New Jersey Democrat said. “Delaney Hall is a failure; it’s this administration’s failure. The only way to make this right for our communities is to shut it down and make sure the failures we’ve seen never happen again.”
Kim joined Democratic elected officials, including New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill and Reps. Rob Menendez, LaMonica McIver and Nellie Pou outside the detention center for an oversight visit of the facility. Sherrill and Menendez said they were denied access after they initiall arrived. All of the elected Democrats were photographed speaking with protesters.
Kim told the New Jersey Globe that it was difficult to breathe after ICE officers pepper-sprayed him and demonstrators, with other officers using batons to disperse the crowds.
“What we saw here is unfortunately just what we see all over the country,” Kim told NJ.com, an Advance Local news affiliate based in New Jersey. “It’s sad, it’s a sad day.
A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said Kim was allowed into the facility after he made a direct call to Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin. The spokesperson did not confirm whether Sherrill or the other lawmakers were allowed access into the facility.
Mullin posted on X that there was no hunger strike at the facility and called the Democrats’ visit to Delaney Hill a “political stunt.”
Protesters have gathered outside the facility since Friday, when organizer Gabriela Soto arrived at the detention center at the start of the hunger and work strike, the New York City-based outlet The City reported.
“The people inside Delaney Hall are fathers and mothers, sons and daughters, and members of our community,” Soto, whose husband has been detained at Delaney Hall since February, told the outlet. “In New Jersey, we believe in the rule of law and that everyone deserves to be treated with basic dignity. We have a duty to safeguard the rights, health, and well-being of everyone within our borders.”
