Newark mayor: City police will be taking over outside Delaney Hall
The Newark Police Department will now lead operations around the ICE facility, according to Attorney General Jennifer Davenport.
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City police will be taking over outside Delaney Hall in Newark, Mayor Ras Baraka says.
The mayor said at a press conference Tuesday that he's troubled by what he saw between not just ICE agents and protesters but state police and protesters.
Gov. Mikie Sherrill ordered state police this weekend and protests intensified, Baraka says. He says the governor supports this move.
He also says the focus needs to be on why people are protesting and that's because of what's happening inside the immigration jail.
He says they are going to argue in front of a judge that this should be closed because of health and safety and that the city will be expanding its lawsuit against the Geo Group. Geo Group is the private contractor that runs Delaney Hall.
“We believe that the way Geo Group opened that the facility was in contravention to the city municipal code from the very beginning. It has no real grounds to be open. It should be closed on the grounds that we stated in the first place," Baraka says.
The lawsuit is not just for violations, but for the ways in which detainees are being treated, which is a matter of health and safety, Baraka says. “People have to be treated humanely in institutions."
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