ICE Pepper-Sprays Senator During Immigration Detention Facility Protests
Left says
- •ICE agents used excessive force against peaceful protesters advocating for humane treatment of detainees on hunger strike
- •Detainees at the privately-run facility face inhumane conditions including contaminated food with live worms, inadequate medical care, and poor ventilation
- •The Trump administration's mass deportation campaign is targeting immigrants with clean records who pay taxes and have family ties to citizens
- •Federal agents are violating protesters' First Amendment rights and using intimidation tactics against elected officials and journalists
Right says
- •Protesters engaged in disruptive and illegal activities including blocking vehicles and attempting to interfere with federal law enforcement operations
- •ICE agents used appropriate crowd control measures only after protesters became violent and threw objects at officers
- •The detention facility meets federal standards and the Department of Homeland Security has debunked false allegations about conditions
- •Many protesters are paid agitators rather than genuine advocates, as evidenced by their aggressive behavior toward reporters and law enforcement
Common Take
High Consensus- Approximately 300 detainees at Delaney Hall have been participating in a hunger and work strike since Friday
- ICE agents deployed pepper spray and chemical irritants during confrontations with protesters outside the facility
- Senator Andy Kim was affected by pepper spray during the demonstrations on Monday
- The facility is operated by the private prison company GEO Group and houses around 300-400 detainees
The Arguments
Left argues
Federal agents used excessive force against peaceful protesters and even pepper-sprayed a sitting U.S. Senator, violating First Amendment rights and demonstrating the administration's authoritarian tactics against legitimate oversight.
Right counters
ICE agents used appropriate crowd control measures only after protesters became violent, threw objects at officers, and attempted to illegally block federal vehicles from conducting lawful operations.
Right argues
The Department of Homeland Security has officially debunked false allegations about facility conditions, and the detention center meets all federal standards for housing detainees awaiting immigration proceedings.
Left counters
Multiple detainees and recently released individuals have independently corroborated reports of contaminated food with live worms, inadequate medical care, and poor ventilation, with guards even acknowledging these complaints to family members.
Left argues
The mass deportation campaign is targeting immigrants with clean records who pay taxes and have family ties to U.S. citizens, separating families and violating due process rights rather than focusing on actual criminals.
Right counters
Immigration enforcement is lawfully detaining individuals who are in the country illegally while their cases are processed, regardless of their personal circumstances, as required by federal immigration law.
Right argues
Many protesters are paid agitators rather than genuine advocates, as evidenced by their aggressive behavior toward reporters, use of profanity and Nazi comparisons, and coordinated efforts to disrupt federal operations.
Left counters
The protests were organized by family members of detainees, including the wife of a hunger strike organizer, and represent genuine community concern about inhumane conditions affecting hundreds of people.
Left argues
The hunger and work strike by 300-400 detainees at a privately-run facility demonstrates systematic problems with conditions, including contaminated food and denied medical care that violate basic human dignity.
Right counters
Private detention facilities operate under federal oversight and standards, and hunger strikes are often used as manipulation tactics by detainees seeking to pressure authorities regardless of actual conditions.
Challenge Questions
These questions target genuine internal contradictions — meant to provoke honest reflection.
Right asks Left
“If the conditions at Delaney Hall are truly as horrific as claimed, why hasn't there been independent verification from federal inspectors or court orders mandating immediate changes, and how do you reconcile calls for due process with demands to simply release detainees without completing their legal proceedings?”
Left asks Right
“If ICE agents were justified in using force against 'violent' protesters, why was a sitting U.S. Senator also pepper-sprayed while apparently engaging in peaceful oversight, and how does dismissing all protesters as 'paid agitators' address the specific allegations about facility conditions made by detainees themselves?”
Outlier Report
Left Fringe
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other progressive Squad members who frame all immigration enforcement as inherently fascist and call for abolishing ICE entirely. They represent roughly 15-20% of the left coalition.
Right Fringe
Stephen Miller and hardline immigration restrictionists who view any criticism of detention conditions as anti-American and support maximum force against protesters. They represent about 25-30% of the right coalition.
Noise Assessment
Moderate noise amplification. The viral video of protesters screaming 'Nazi' at reporters and the Senator pepper-spray incident generate outsized social media engagement, but the core dispute over detention conditions and protest tactics reflects genuine policy disagreements rather than manufactured outrage.
Sources (8)
Federal agents fired pepper balls at protesters outside Delaney Hall in Newark on Monday following days of unrest outside the privately run immigration detention center. U.S. Sen. Andy Kim said he had trouble breathing from the cloud of pepper spray deployed as a growing crowd of protesters responding to an inmate hunger strike demonstrated outside.
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 officers surrounding a detained individual, with another showing him speaking with demonstrators.
Protesters continued demonstrations at Newark, New Jersey's Delaney Hall detention facility Tuesday, clashing with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents as they carried weekend protests into Tuesday. Video shows immigration authorities shoving a woman through a line of masked and armed guards and threatening to deploy pepper spray as protesters shouted at the agents. "You're over here breaking up, separating families, taking them away! WHY?" one protester screamed in the agents' faces.
<img src="https://www.theblaze.com/media-library/watch-protester-screeches-nazi-b-h-at-fox-news-reporter-on-air-during-new-jersey-ice-protest.jpg?id=66827661&width=1245&height=700&coordinates=0%2C0%2C0%2C209" /><br /><br /><p>A Fox News reporter caught the crazed reaction from an anti-Immigration and Customs Enforcement protester live as she broadcasted from a demonstration at an immigrant detention center in New Jersey.</p><p>Protesters have declaimed against the conditions inside of the ICE detainment center at Delaney Hall in Newark as detainees have reportedly been participating in hunger strikes since Friday.</p><p class="pull-quote">'It’s constant with this. This is what these people do. They want people who are in this country illegally to be released out onto the streets.'</p><p>On Tuesday, the outrage led to an outburst captured on air on Fox News.</p><p>"I'm not the most popular reporter, right, at these ICE protests. So just prepare yourself to see some of that," said Fox reporter Alexis McAdams. </p><p>"The other situation is there's people like this. You are a protester who’s been out here — and you have a dirty mouth."</p><p>The woman appears to say, "You're a b***h!" at McAdams.</p><p>"OK! So that’s just what we deal with," McAdams responded. </p><p>"It’s constant with this. This is what these people do. They want people who are in this country illegally to be released out onto the streets."</p><p>"F**king Nazi b***h! That’s what you are!" screams the protester.</p><p>"That is an eloquent argument," replied Fox host Will Cain back at the studio.</p><p>Video of the interaction was <a href="https://x.com/RedWavePress/status/2059370114290770273" target="_blank">posted to social media</a>, where it quickly went viral.</p><p>Protesters claim that federal officials are ignoring medical care requests and needs from the detainees, who also claim they are being held under poor conditions and fed bad food that is causing illness. On Monday, protesters tried to block vehicles from leaving the center and were pepper-sprayed by agents. </p><p>The Department of Homeland Security <a href="https://www.dhs.gov/news/2026/05/25/dhs-debunks-new-jersey-sanctuary-politicians-smears-against-ice-facility" target="_blank">denies</a> the allegations about the conditions at the facility.</p><p><strong>RELATED: </strong><a href="https://www.theblaze.com/news/pro-ice-student-suspended-poster" target="_blank"><strong>Pro-ICE student suspended for posters at California high school after anti-ICE student walkout</strong></a></p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-youtube"> <span class="rm-shortcode" style="display: block; padding-top: 56.25%;"></span> </p><p>"They're given rotten frozen food, or in the case of last week, they found live worms in their food, we're also hearing of people being denied toilet paper," said activist Catalina Adorno <a href="https://abc7ny.com/post/protesters-clash-ice-agents-during-protest-delaney-hall-newark-amid-hunger-strike-inside/19179424/" target="_blank">to WABC-TV. </a></p><p>There are about 300 detainees being held at the <a href="https://www.theblaze.com/news/much-needed-bed-space-for-deportees-on-the-way-thanks-to-partnership-between-ice-private-company" target="_blank">privately run</a> facility at Delaney Hall, which includes about 1,000 beds. Detainees have tablets to communicate with the outside.</p><p><em>Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. </em><em><a href="https://www.theblaze.com/newsletters/theblaze-articlelink" target="_self">Sign up here</a></em><em>! </em></p>
Around 300 immigrants detained at the Delaney Hall <span class="caps">ICE</span> jail in Newark, New Jersey, have been on a hunger and work strike since Friday to protest inhumane conditions and due process violations. Delaney Hall is operated by the private prison company <span class="caps">GEO</span> Group. Since the hunger strike was launched, immigration advocates have been staging a solidarity protest outside Delaney Hall to promote the detainees’ demands for freedom. Protesters and <span class="caps">ICE</span> agents have clashed outside the jail, and three people have been arrested. Tensions escalated on Sunday when <span class="caps">ICE</span> removed a hunger strike organizer, Martín Soto, prompting protesters outside the <span class="caps">ICE</span> jail to block a van being used to transport him. Masked <span class="caps">ICE</span> agents responded by firing tear gas and pushing people to the ground. Soto was ultimately transferred to an <span class="caps">ICE</span> jail in Elizabeth, New Jersey, and is now facing criminal charges for allegedly assaulting an <span class="caps">ICE</span> officer.</p> <p>We speak to Gabriela Soto, Martín Soto’s wife, and Li Adorno, an organizer with the group Movimiento Cosecha. Both have helped lead the protest outside Delaney Hall.</p> <p>Gabriela Soto says that she started the protest in conjunction with the detainees’ strike so that the media could see how <span class="caps">ICE</span> is “destroying families and separating them.” Soto says that when she was blocked from seeing her husband during visiting hours on Saturday, a guard asked her why she was “spreading lies” and talking to the press. “He said, 'Why are you telling people that we're feeding them worms? Why are you telling people that we don’t give them medical care?’ I said, 'Because it's true.’”
President Trump dismissed Delaney Hall protesters as fake and paid for as Democratic lawmakers alleged overcrowding and poor conditions at the ICE detention center.
<p>A day after ICE officials pepper-spray senator, tensions ramp up outside facility on fifth day of hunger and labor strike</p><ul><li><p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/gallery/2026/may/27/new-jersey-immigration-detention-pictures">Chaos breaks out at New Jersey immigration detention center – in pictures</a></p></li></ul><p>Protests against immigration enforcement at a facility where detainees are on a hunger and labor strike erupted in fresh violence on Tuesday night as federal officers sprayed chemicals and charged demonstrators outside the jail in New Jersey.</p><p>Following hours of relative quiet, a day after masked and armored Immigration and Customs Enforcement (<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ice-us-immigration-and-customs-enforcement">ICE</a>) personnel <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/may/26/senator-pepper-sprayed-ice-facility-protest-new-jersey">pepper-sprayed US senator Andy Kim</a>, tensions ramped up again outside the Delaney Hall facility on the fifth day of the strike.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/may/27/new-jersey-ice-immigration">Continue reading...</a>
<p>Federal agents deployed chemical irritants on protesters and journalists amid detainees’ hunger and labor strike</p><ul><li><p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/may/27/new-jersey-ice-immigration">‘We are not criminals’: protests erupt as hunger strike rocks New Jersey ICE jail</a></p></li></ul> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/gallery/2026/may/27/new-jersey-immigration-detention-pictures">Continue reading...</a>