On Tuesday night, federal agents resorted to using pepper spray and physical force to disperse protesters gathered outside the Delaney Hall detention center in New Jersey. This marked the culmination of several days of unrest at the privately managed facility.
Video footage, released by FreedomNewsTV, captures the tense standoff as demonstrators attempted to block vehicles from exiting Delaney Hall in Newark. Law enforcement officers are seen intervening to prevent the protesters from obstructing traffic and to clear the road.
The situation escalated into a physical altercation when federal agents began forcibly removing protesters who had positioned themselves near the hood of a vehicle attempting to depart. Some agents employed pepper spray, while others wielded batons to drive back the crowd.
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Federal agents engaged with anti-ICE protesters who obstructed vehicles from leaving Delaney Hall, an immigration detention center operated privately, in Newark, New Jersey, on Tuesday, May 26, 2026. (FNTV)
Later that evening, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin addressed the situation in a post on social media platform X, commenting on the recent confrontations.
“ICE law enforcement officers were assaulted by anti-ICE rioters who sprayed law enforcement with an unknown chemical substance,” Mullin wrote, adding that two individuals were arrested for allegedly assaulting, resisting and impeding federal officers.
Federal agents were seen hitting some agitators with batons during the encounter outside Delaney Hall in Newark, New Jersey, on Tuesday, May 26, 2026. (FNTV)
The clashes extended a weekend protest over conditions for detainees in the facility, prompted by a reported hunger strike undertaken by the detainees themselves.
Mullin on Monday denied the claims, writing, “There is NO hunger strike at Delaney Hall. There are no subprime conditions.”
Protestors and ICE agents clashed outside the Delaney Hall detention center during a protest against detainee transfers in Newark, N.J., on May 26, 2026. (Andres Kudacki/AP)
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During the days of demonstrations, prominent New Jersey Democrats came to the facility, including Sen. Andy Kim and Gov. Mikie Sherrill. While Kim was allowed entry to the facility, Sherrill was denied.
New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill and Sen. Andy Kim, D-N.J., stand outside Newark, New Jersey’s Delaney Hall detention center during a protest on Monday, May 25, 2026. (Governor Mikie Sherrill)
Democrats, including Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., rallied around Sherrill, criticizing ICE and the facility on social media.
Meanwhile, the Department of Homeland Security on Tuesday said, “We will NOT let rioters stop or slow @ICEgov down.”
ICE agents detain a protestor outside the Delaney Hall detention center after demonstrators protested the transfer of detainees in Newark, N.J., on May 26, 2026. (Andres Kudacki/AP)
“While New Jersey sanctuary politicians and anti-ICE agitators chose to spend their Memorial Day weekend smearing law enforcement and rioting outside ICE’s Delaney Hall facility, our law enforcement continued to put their lives on the line to arrest murderers, pedophiles, and kidnappers,” the department wrote on X, replying with a thread of posts and images of criminal illegal aliens they say have been arrested.
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