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To the editor:
After having gone to Delaney Hall, an immigration detention center in New Jersey, on Sunday, I see that the press is focusing more on the violence taking place late at night while so many are showing up all day and into the evening peacefully including many religious leaders holding services. The main issue should be the detainees, and their rights being violated.
This is a national issue.
I heard from people who are at the facility showing solidarity daily who have read letters by detainees to us about the horrible squalor they are forced to endure and the often brutal circumstances of their detainment.
Maggots and worms are in much of the food. The place is filthy. Healthcare is of poor quality and mental health is non-existent. ICE guards treat the inmates in a cruel manner.
This privately-run, for-profit facility that functions more like a concentration camp, paid for by the Trump administration with our tax dollars. These detainees are not felons and are not charged as such. Many are from the Federal Building in Manhattan where they were grabbed up without warrants while doing their legal duty of trying to become a citizen.
Most times in front of their families. The children are especially traumatized. This was illegal according to a judicial ruling. Why are they then still being incarcerated with even a hearing or trial?
The detainees are on strike from being forced to work in the facility for $1.50 pay a day. Some are on hunger strike.
They have four reasonable demands that should be made met; A meeting with Governor Sherrill asking her to tour the facility and hear directly from detainees, release of vulnerable detainees including pregnant women, elderly and those with serious medical conditions, meaningful review of immigration cases and habeas filings and end the coercive pressure to sign deportation or voluntary departure documents.
Release the detainees and shut Delaney Hall down!
Ralph Palladino
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Ralder
in addition
if anyone would want to read the statements from those who are interned documenting their conditions you can do so by goubg on the peace activists website where more statements will be added soon I am told: lahuelga.com/SOS
Thursday, June 4 Report this
Valete
In light of your concerns regarding Delaney Hall, an immigration detention center located in New Jersey, for its alleged inhumane conditions, it is pertinent to acknowledge that it operates as a high-capacity facility. Its primary function is to accommodate migrants who have been apprehended while awaiting immigration court hearings or removal proceedings. It is noteworthy that the residents of Delaney Hall, who are illegal immigrants, would not be voicing complaints about poor sanitation, inadequate healthcare, and mistreatment if they had not entered the United States illegally.
Thursday, June 4 Report this