Araceli Argueta / AFSC
NEWARK, NJ (February 28, 2025) – This week, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) signed a contract with for-profit prison company GEO Group to open a 1,000-bed immigration jail in New Jersey. The contract will reopen the Delaney Hall Facility in Newark. Previously a non-immigration jail, this location has been vacant since December 2023. The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) – a Quaker organization that has spent decades working for immigrant rights in New Jersey and around the country – spoke out against the contract.
“New Jersey made a commitment to end immigration detention,” said Araceli Argueta, Organizing and Advocacy Director for AFSC’s NJ Immigrant Rights Program. “The reopening of these facilities undermines the voices of New Jersey residents. We must protect our communities and ensure that no one is incarcerated just so corporations can profit.”
AFSC has been working to resist the reopening of Delaney Hall and the potential opening of Bo Robinson as immigration detention centers. Over the last several years, New jersey has shut down immigration detention and ended contracts with ICE. In 2021, New Jersey passed AB 5207, legislation that prevented state and local entities to contract with ICE for immigration detention. Now community groups, legal advocates, and legislators are pushing back against efforts to reopen immigration jails.
The contract between ICE and GEO Group for the Delaney facility is slated to last 15 years and cost taxpayers approximately a billion dollars. For-profit companies like GEO Group and CoreCivic run most of the detention centers in the United States. GEO Group is the largest immigration jail provider for ICE.
“This latest $1 billion contract further underscores how the company profits from and fuels harmful immigration policies and the pain of our communities,” said Davi Sherman, a researcher for AFSC’s Action Center for Corporate Accountability. “We call on cities, universities, unions, faith organizations, and other institutions to divest for immigrant justice by withdrawing from partnerships with GEO Group and the other main corporate profiteers behind the criminalization, detention, and surveillance of immigrant communities throughout the United States.”
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The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) promotes a world free of violence, inequality, and oppression. Guided by the Quaker belief in the divine Light within each person, we nurture the seeds of change and the respect for human life to fundamentally transform our societies and institutions. We work with people and partners worldwide, of all faiths and backgrounds, to meet urgent community needs, challenge injustice, and build peace.