Three members of Congress stormed through the gates of a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility in New Jersey on Friday, demanding they be allowed to conduct an “oversight visit.”
Reps. Rob Menendez Jr., Bonnie Watson Coleman and LaMonica McIver, all New Jersey Democrats, entered ICE’s Delaney Hall detention facility in Newark and were held up inside the first checkpoint, Department of Homeland Security spokesperson DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin told Fox News.
The prison currently holds alleged killers, MS-13 gang members, child rapists, among other criminal offenders.
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The lawmakers were outside the facility with a group of protesters when the gates opened to allow an ICE bus in. The lawmakers then rushed through the gates and past security, DHS said.
Activists have demanded entry into the facility in recent days, saying the GEO Group, the building’s new owner, is unlawfully preventing it from being inspected.
“We’re at Delaney Hall, an ICE prison in Newark that opened without permission from the city & in violation of local ordinances,” Coleman wrote on X. “We’ve heard stories of what it’s like in other ICE prisons. We’re exercising our oversight authority to see for ourselves.”
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McIver said the “lack of transparency around what’s happening with ICE in this facility is unacceptable. People deserve dignity and we need answers.”
In a press conference on Monday, Newark Mayor Ras Baraka said GEO Group is “following the pattern of the president of the United States who believes that he can just do what he wants to do and obscure the laws, national and constitutional laws, and they think they can do the same thing in the state of New Jersey and in Newark.”
A lawsuit filed on behalf of the City of Newark on April 1 alleges that GEO Group failed to permit entry to safety inspectors and violated city construction code, including by conducting electrical and plumbing renovations without proper oversight.
Fox News Digital’s Max Bacall contributed to this report.