Union Activists Are Building Solidarity With Delaney Hall Hunger Strikers

At least 200 labor activists, union members, and community activists rallied outside of Delaney Hall in Newark, New Jersey, on Sunday, in a show of solidarity with those detained in the immigration jail.

The demonstration was held on Father’s Day to show solidarity with the parents detained in Delaney Hall and their families. It was organized by Labor Eyes on ICE, a coalition of unions and activist groups that has worked to build labor solidarity with those detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) at Delaney Hall and elsewhere, over the past year. The alliance includes unions and organizations in New Jersey and New York, including HPAE Local 5094, Professional Staff Congress-CUNY; Newark Library Workers; 1199 SEIU; and the North and Central Jersey chapters of the Democratic Socialists of America.

At the rally, activists held signs and banners that said “An Injury to One Is an Injury to All” and “Free Them All.” They also held signs saying “Support the Women at Delaney Hall,” in reference to the women detained in Delaney Hall’s Unit 1, who announced on June 11 that they were joining the ongoing hunger and labor strike and put forward their own gender-specific demands.

Over 300 people detained at Delaney launched the hunger and labor strike on May 22 after releasing letters describing the inhumane conditions within the jail, which is run by for-profit prison company GEO Group. The hunger strikers have faced repeated retaliation from both ICE and GEO Group staff, including beatings, teargassing, and the transfer of a majority of the striking men.

Union activists spoke at the rally, stressing the importance of labor solidarity with the detainees. Three mothers whose husbands were kidnapped by ICE and imprisoned at Delaney also spoke, with their children by their side. Among those speakers was Gabriela Soto, who initiated the protests in solidarity with the hunger and labor strikers outside Delaney Hall on May 22. In a powerful speech with her toddler in her arms, she said that her husband, Martin Soto, was “illegally detained back on February first, for going out to get diapers.”

ICE and GEO Group saw her husband as the instigator of the hunger strike – despite the fact that it was a collective effort – and transferred him to another detention center in May. Soto said that ICE and GEO Group staff offered to release her husband if she stopped the protests outside of Delaney. He refused.

“We need to keep fighting for the freedom of these people,” she said.

Soto said that reporters have asked her what she thinks of America. “My answer for every single reporter is, America is Peru. America is Africa. America is Colombia. America is Mexico. We [immigrants] are America.”

Two other mothers described their children’s anguish and confusion since their fathers were kidnapped by ICE. They said that they have been retaliated against by the facility, and denied visits to their husbands after speaking to the media.

As the protest continued, the facility told families visiting their detained loved ones that they were shutting down visitation for the remainder of the day – in retaliation for the demonstration and in an attempt to pit families against the protests. Some family members left in tears.

The demonstration, however, symbolized the growth of labor solidarity and labor organizing efforts with Delaney over the course of the past year.

Labor Eyes on ICE describes itself as an “alliance of labor unions that supports the complete abolition of ICE” and “freedom for everyone currently being held in immigrant detention.”

Isaac Jimenez, secretary of the Union of Rutgers Administrators (URA-AFT) told Truthout earlier this month that unions have been in solidarity with people imprisoned in Delaney Hall since the jail reopened in 2025.

“HPAE was the first local, the first union – and those are the health care workers and nurses – to jump in and build this alliance, and since then we’ve had monthly demonstrations outside Delaney, and have gotten more unions to sign on,” he said. “Now we have about [10 or 11] unions that have joined this alliance.”

Read more Former CoreCivic CEO Damon Hininger Eyes US Senate Seat in Tennessee

After the Sunday rally, Sofya Aptekar of PSC-CUNY told Truthout how the coalition of unions has grown.

“The tristate area is tightly integrated with New York and New Jersey residents working across the state line,” she said. “The involvement of New York unions in this fight belies the outside agitator narrative” – a line repeated by New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill (D), who blamed ‘outsiders’ for the violence by ICE agents and police – “because some of these union members live in New Jersey and work in New York. And New Yorkers are kidnapped by ICE and detained in Delaney. We come to fight for our New York and New Jersey neighbors.”

Geoff Johnson, Rebecca Shapiro, and Karl Schwartz, who initiated Labor Eyes on ICE, also spoke to Truthout.

“As a rank-and-file member of PSC-CUNY for over 20 years, it has been incredible to see the increased energy within our union as a direct result of ongoing organizing by our Immigrant Solidarity Working Group,” Johnson said.

PSC-CUNY has brought “dozens of members and their families” to Delaney for the last two monthly Labor Eyes on ICE demonstrations, he said. Over the past year, members of the working group have also served as court observers, accompanying immigrants in NYC courts.

“We’re standing in solidarity with those harmed by the oppression and violence of the Trump regime and ICE,” he said, “but we’re also building our union’s organizing muscles for future fights.”

Rebecca Shapiro, also of PSC-CUNY, told Truthout that the Father’s Day demonstration was one of many actions by Labor Eyes on ICE to spread awareness.

“We cannot allow people to be incarcerated and treated so unconstitutionally; it is offensive and wrong,” she said. “As long as Delaney Hall, places like it, and ICE continue to exist, we will work towards the dismantling of an unjust and unconstitutional system that actively seeks to harm people and communities.”

Karl Schwartz, vice president of AFSCME Local 2298 representing Newark Public Library workers, told Truthout that the coalition “refuse[s] to let anyone divide us along lines of immigration.”

“There is a myth that the working class supports Trump’s cruel campaign of mass deportations, but we have proven that here in New Jersey, working people overwhelmingly stand with their immigrant brothers and sisters,” he said. “We are proud of the hundreds of working people who showed up on Father’s Day to demand an end to ICE detention. We know that it is millionaires and billionaires who have made life so hard for working people in this country — not undocumented immigrants.”

Local police arrived at the height of the demonstration, but the rally continued without a major confrontation. However, when the labor event ended and the demonstration thinned, retaliatory actions began once again. A GEO Group employee or private security contractor deliberately struck a protester with his car; she was taken to the hospital. Soon after, ICE agents pepper sprayed the protesters who remained at the site.

Delaney has become a flashpoint of struggle in the fight against President Donald Trump’s expansion of ICE and draconian detention and deportation campaign.

Labor solidarity activists “were there [at Delaney] before the hunger strike and we will be there after it too,” Schwartz told Truthout. “We are not giving up until everyone inside Delaney Hall is released and the detention center closes for good.”

Read more An Abelardo de la Espriella Presidency Threatens Colombia’s Climate Policies