(New York) An internal rebellion, clashes between police and demonstrators, and prisoners on the run: a controversial detention center for migrants wanted by the Trump government is the scene of lively tensions, different sources said on Friday.
Shortly after Donald Trump’s return to the White House, Federal Immigration Police (ICE) had granted a $ 15-year-old contract to Geo Group to transform the Delaney Hall site, near Newark airport, New Jersey, a 1,000-bed detention center.
From May, despite the protests of local elected officials and demonstrators, the center began to receive migrants arrested by ICE agents and who are now threatened with expulsion from the United States.
Lawyer Mustafa Cetin, who defends an asylum seeker, explained that his client had mentioned a rebellion against meals served late and the conditions of detention.
“I spoke to my client yesterday, he told me that fifty prisoners complained about their conditions. They started to be aggressive and it became violent, “he told AFP on Friday. “What is happening is a lack of planning and responsibility” of the GEO authorities and group.
American media and videos showed opponents of Donald Trump’s migration policy on Thursday evening, trying to block an ICE vehicle in front of the center located in a lost industrial area, and clashes with police officers.
A senior official of the American Department of Internal Security (DHS) said on Friday at AFP that four detainees had “escaped” Thursday evening. “Additional police are deployed to find these fugitives.”
Newark Democrat mayor, Ras Baraka, said he was “concerned about the information about what occurred in the evening to Delaney Hall, going from the refusal to serve food, ill -treatment, riots and the escape of detainees”.
Municipal authorities “must be authorized to enter to observe and monitor,” the mayor said in a statement, adding that “private prisons pose a real problem to our state and its constitution”.
The mayor opposes the establishment of the detention center in the territory of his city and more broadly to the migration policy of Donald Trump, which has made the fight against so -called clandestine immigration a priority, speaking of “invasion” by “criminals from abroad”.
Ras Baraka had also been briefly arrested in May as he was trying to enter this center heavily kept by security and ICE.
