Greetings to all those keeping a close watch on current events.
While some may envision the Delaney Hall ICE facility in Newark through the lens of a Dickensian dystopia, reality paints a different picture.
Contrary to tales of hardship, residents of the facility are not only well provided for with nutritious meals, but they also have access to computers and cutting-edge gym equipment. Moreover, they can unwind with yoga sessions enhanced by lavender-scented aromatherapy.
When not perfecting their downward dog poses, detainees have the opportunity to enjoy a “full soccer field and an excellent gym,” according to Representative Jeff Van Drew (R-NJ), who recently visited the facility.
Van Drew’s tour coincided with protests outside Delaney Hall, where activists alleged that detainees were enduring rotten food and inhumane conditions—a narrative starkly contradicted by Van Drew’s account of the 1,000-bed facility’s amenities.
At 73, Van Drew expressed his surprise, noting that the fitness center was “way better” than the one available in his Washington, D.C., apartment building.
“They’ve got a squat machine, they’ve got a machine for bench pressing. Also a fly, reverse fly. Leg machines, all the stuff you have in a real full-service gym,” he said.
He said officials told him the detainees also get to do yoga.
GEO Reentry Services, an arm of the private company GOP Group which runs this facility and others under $1 billion in government contracts, talked up Delaney’s yoga offerings in a web posting.
The workouts, held in the lecture hall, include “meditation and mindfulness sessions” — and “lavender and tangerine aromatherapy to create a calming and invigorating environment.”
At each session “residents learn about the latest research about the benefits of aromatherapy and meditation at other facilities, including San Quentin, Folsom and Walpole,” in reference to well-known lockups.
“There’s a lot of benefits,” Alexis Giglio, a therapist who helped lead the class several years ago, told The Post. She said she surveyed inmates at Delaney about “how they’re feeling beforehand and how they’re feeling after.”
A GEO Group spokesperson said the facility offered “fitness and wellness programming focused on physical health and stress reduction,” with dayroom areas providing room for “additional movement and individual exercise.” It added that “indoor leisure activities include dominoes, card games and special events.”
Van Drew was impressed by the food.
“Three good hot meals a day … from scrambled eggs to — I mean, all in one meal — to bacon and toast and muffins and fruit,” said Van Drew, who himself often just noshes on pretzels for lunch.
Special meals are prepared for diabetics, and those who keep kosher or eat halal, the lawmaker said.
“No worms anywhere — I didn’t see a fly,” Van Drew said. “There’s a whole lot of countries in this world of ours . . . not eating as well as they are.?
His observations contradicted claims by Rep. Jerold Nadler (D-NY) that there are “maggots in the food.” Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-NY) branded the conditions “inhumane” after his own tour.
“We really looked around kind of every nook and cranny. It was immaculate,” said Van Drew.
Detainees told him in brief conversations that they were “good.” He got to briefly view an infirmary with a few people in it, and “all seemed fine.”
He toured separate sleeping areas for men and women, and both “looked like they were doing great,” he said.
“They have a library. They have access to laptops, they have access to iPads,” he said, along with legal references and regular books.
“I wish that [in] every single nursing home. . . people were treated as well as these people were,” said Van Drew, who chaired a prison gang task force when he was in the New Jersey state Senate.
“We have groups of politicians that are using it as a political tool to further their ambitions,” he said, during a week when the state of New Jersey sued demanding “full access” by state health inspectors to Delaney.
His firsthand observations follow tense clashes between ICE and protesters who were pooling resources for riot gear outside.
Sen. Andy Kim (D-NJ), who got pepper sprayed outside Delaney when he visited a week before Van Drew, claimed the facility was plagued by “unsanitary conditions. I saw food that was spoiled,” including milk that was “completely congealed.”
But Kim’s initial take may have expired.
“Some of my colleagues that have been there more recently, as of yesterday, said that it seemed like that it’s cleaner, that there are some improvements,” he said, adding the bigger problem is detainees who were “stuck there” for eight or 10 months.
None of the lawmakers who toured Delaney Hall were allowed to take pictures. But Van Drew is willing to do what it takes to prove conditions are decent.
“I will do a lie detector test anywhere, anytime with anybody” he said.
