Delaney Hall Immigration Detainees Strike Over Forced Labor and Inhumane Conditions

Summary

Hundreds of detainees at Delaney Hall immigration detention center in Newark, New Jersey, are on a labor and hunger strike, refusing work assignments and meals to protest what they describe as unlawful forced detention and inhumane treatment. In handwritten letters smuggled out of the facility, detainees report rotten food with worms, persistent medical neglect, and being forced to work for nothing despite not having been convicted of any crime. The article frames the strike as exposing a Thirteenth Amendment crisis, arguing that immigration detainees are subjected to involuntary servitude under a legal loophole that exempts prison labor from constitutional protections.