Our people’s distress calls won’t go unheard, either

Guest post by Paulo Almiron and Resistencia en Acción NJ
May 25

It’s been a year since Delaney Hall reopened. Sobibor and Auschwitz also opened around May, staining the spring with blood in their respective years.

I have been at Delaney several times to interview people and bear witness to everything happening in 2025. There’s been much to see at the site: priests being manhandled, colleagues arrested, a mayor arrested, three congresspeople assaulted, and an uprising inside, of which I am writing a memoir about the unrest outside. I am qualified to talk about the boots-on-the-ground experience outside Delaney, so to those who have only seen Delaney Hall from behind a screen, let me give you the shortest description possible: this concentration camp is the most repulsive sight in New Jersey.

This gear of detention and deportation machine is in one of the most contaminated places of the state, but you don’t even need to look at studies to know that—you can immediately tell from the smell of burning trash coming from the industrial plants across the road. Mix that with the hot and humid weather of the season, and you won’t tell whether your burning eyes or your difficulty breathing is worse. Lines of families gather every arbitrarily set visiting day, withstanding hell for hours for an often denied chance to see their loved ones. Those trapped in there to this day are served foul smelling water and spoiled, insufficient food. The countless atrocities that happen here are bread and butter, and I’m convinced that the agents inside are human only in appearance. They have sold their souls for a fed badge.

So, a three hundred person hunger strike inside the facility since Friday, May 22, is what everyone should expect from a community inclined towards liberation. What else can people in such a dire situation do?

When I see that people with cancer are put inside without access to medication for weeks, I understand that this is for their survival. A desperate act of protest like this comes from a place of love for not just yourself, but for your newly found siblings, detained and abused just for coming to this country to feed your loved ones.

Please note that these people are not striking for better conditions at the camp. Anyone telling you that the situation is fixed by giving them a higher wage or better beds to sleep on, much like those who, on other occasions, claim that we need better trained ICE agents, has no idea of the situation on the ground.

These people want freedom.

Immediately after the hunger strike was announced, hundreds of people showed up outside the facility to express their solidarity. Those inside keep replying to their chants with waves and the flickering of their rooms’ lights. When I watched the video, I had to take a moment to recompose myself as a memory hit me in the face.

Two prisoners wave at the protesters.

Last year at a rally, a man approached me. “What are you guys protesting about?”

I was ready to give my pitch: “We are protesting outside to demand that Delaney Hall closes. . .”

“Okay, but why are you protesting? What does protesting do?”

“Protesting applies pressure on elected officials so they can take action.”

The man disagreed. He said there were more effective ways to do things, so he asked me again: “Why are you protesting?”

There was another reason.

“We also do it so that those inside can hear us, so they know they aren’t alone in this.”

The man, now satisfied, let me continue with my day, but the conversation stuck with me to this day. How sure was I that they could hear us, though? Since we started protesting, I always hoped that those inside could hear, and their acknowledgement of the noise outside the facility these past few nights just gave me the final answer.

They can hear us, and we must be loud for them. No amount of pepper spray will ever kill the hope that those inside will one day see their most human wish come to fruition: to breathe the same air as their loved ones in their homes. No amount of tear gas will stop us from empowering them, assuring them that the sun will shine on their faces one day.

We need Governor Mikie Sherill and every elected official to show up and join our demands to close this place for good. If and when they do, they should bring speakers so they can send a message to those inside, because they can hear.

Our people’s distress calls won’t go unheard, either. Free them all.