Summer ICE Wars Heating Up

In my first post this morning, I had a couple of Xweets that gave a bit of a hint about what’s been going on in Newark, New Jersey, over the past few days.

There’s a federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention facility in Newark that’s been getting some renewed attention lately, thanks to the spring weather warming things up.

And if that sort of rings a bell with you, you get a cookie. It’s the same facility that, almost a year ago, Congresswoman LaMonica McIver and the Newark mayor were arrested at for charging the gate and roughing up agents who’d told them they needed to have an appointment to visit.

Rep. LaMonica McIver charged after skirmish at ICE facility; Newark Mayor Baraka’s charges dropped https://t.co/avW8qUoV1P pic.twitter.com/Y8mffF6uRb

— Eyewitness News (@ABC7NY) May 20, 2025

This is the exact same place.

Delaney Hall has become what I assume will be the first test case for newly installed Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Markwayne Mullins’ mettle, as activists, including elected officials, have been gathering outside the facility for days now. On the inside, detainees being held have been rumored to have launched a hunger strike, which, naturally, gives license to those banging on the gates an even more righteous reason to demand access.

Activists set up a “Radical Hospitality Zone” Tent outside ICE Detention Center Delaney Hall, to provide donation items such as clothes, baby car seats, shoes as well as offer food and drinks to families visiting detainees. pic.twitter.com/oyOB8Uc7kU

— Oliya Scootercaster 🛴 (@ScooterCasterNY) May 23, 2026

Newark police are nowhere to be seen in any of these videos.

It’s been about five days since the protests started in earnest, but as of this weekend, participants have become more aggressive and threatening to the law enforcement officers inside. This was Saturday.

NOW: Protesters are blocking entry to the Delaney Hall Detention Center in Newark, claiming a detainee who helped organize an ongoing hunger strike has been held inside a transport van in the parking lot since around 4 p.m.

Protesters let all worker cars through and only… pic.twitter.com/YkQL7aZmmo

— Oliya Scootercaster 🛴 (@ScooterCasterNY) May 25, 2026

…Protesters let all worker cars through and only blocking transport van.

Oh, how decent. They ‘only’ blocked the transport van?

Well, that didn’t last long. The crowd started feeling empowered, and pretty soon, everyone got a going over, if they were ‘allowed’ to leave at all.

BREAKING: ICE Agents clashes with Anti-ICE Protesters outside of Delaney Hall early this morning, as cars were blocked from leaving the Detention Facility in New Jersey.

Video by Dakota Santiago | Licensing @FreedomNTV [email protected] https://t.co/b1JNPkZe2y pic.twitter.com/tu7z6GluMC

— Oliya Scootercaster 🛴 (@ScooterCasterNY) May 25, 2026

It’s starting to look very Minneapolis menacing-like around the facility’s perimeter, if you get what I’m saying. 

This sort of ruckus also draws all the Democratic bottom feeders for a shot to get some camera time emoting for the news and their mid-term campaigns. Sure enough, here came the first one, demanding entrance right this second, knowing full well he had no right to do so.

But being first means he got dibs, and they eventually let him in.

UPDATE: Rob Menendez says he’ll stay there all night until allowed to see inside ICE Facility https://t.co/4efyh7kD07 pic.twitter.com/Wzd9Ltbgat

— Oliya Scootercaster 🛴 (@ScooterCasterNY) May 25, 2026

Why they did is anyone’s guess, but maybe to cut the legs out from under some of his grandstanding. At first, his posturing about ‘not eating or drinking so as to avoid using the restrooms‘ sounds ridiculously over the top – something like Spartacus Booker would say – until you realize he desperately needs heroic progressive sound bites for his campaign ads.

I hear that disco song, ‘I Need a Hero,’ in my head while reading Menendez’s Xweet.

Last night I arrived at Delaney Hall to conduct an unannounced oversight visit after hearing a constituent was facing potential transfer or deportation for his role in the recent strike.

I was denied entry, but I have remained on-site throughout the night. I was told that I…

— Rep. Rob Menendez (@RepMenendez) May 25, 2026

…I was told that I would be able to go inside at 8am, but ICE continues to deny entry. I will provide updates soon.

Thank you to all the families and volunteers who have stood in solidarity throughout the night.

Well, unlike poignant love letters to back home written from the blood-soaked peach orchard at Shiloh, Menendez’s heroic stand turns out to be more self-interested than altruistic concern for his fellow man’s suffering. The only reason he’s sleeping in his car is that the congressman is in the dogfight of his political life against someone even more left-wing than him.

They’re all such easily exposed frauds.

QUICK! GOTTA SAVE AN ILLEGAL! WASH MY HANDS AFTERWARDS

he is running against a person that’s to the left of him so he needs to do this politically, here ya go https://t.co/fMkB1o3atK

— bubblebathsponge (@bubblebathspon1) May 25, 2026

Meanwhile, the delightful group outside the hurricane fencing keeps growing, blocking the roadway, and adding to the barriers by digging up the landscaping… 

10 USC 12406.

Google it. https://t.co/umWrNaAVpx

— Cam Higby 🇺🇸 (@camhigby) May 26, 2026

…to add to the Chop district-like mess they’re creating.

Still no Newark police, by the way, to say ‘stop that’ or help shoo the vermin off.

The Delaney hall Socialist Liberal Disruptors are now using trash to build a barricade, you’re not protesting, literally causing chaos

Is this really what you stand for Democrats? The people running your party are a bunch of 🤡 allowing this behavior pic.twitter.com/fi2gqHy0dQ https://t.co/ONKiT3CQAC

— Wake Up NJ 🇺🇸 New Jersey (@wakeupnj) May 25, 2026

This is catnip on steroids to politicians. Instead of respectful Memorial Day observances, most New Jersey bigwigs were down at Newark weeping over illegal aliens and posing for the news footage they’d get later.

Gov Sherrill was turned away at the gate. The #rulez are different for state officials.

That had to sting, pardon my snicker.

…Sherrill arrived Monday around 10:30 a.m. alongside several state officials but was denied access to the building. As a state official, she does not have the same oversight authority as federal lawmakers that included Sen. Andy Kim and Rep. Rob Menendez, both of whom have recently entered the facility for congressional oversight visits. Menendez said Monday he had remained at the site overnight waiting for entry. Kim said it took a direct call to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for them to be able to gain access on Monday.

Gov. Mikie Sherrill was reportedly denied entry to the Delaney Hall ICE detention facility. pic.twitter.com/Y8ayVOotCm

— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) May 25, 2026

Sen. Andy Kim was allowed in and then put himself between rioters and agents and got pepper-sprayed for the effort.

I mean, you know he’s so gonna use those pictures.

DELANEY HALL PROTESTS: U.S. Sen. Andy Kim was hit with pepper spray during protests over the weekend outside Delaney Hall in #Newark, #NewJersey. Watch News 12 for the latest developments. – https://t.co/rHzU8cBKdp pic.twitter.com/mAKhmjQCtA

— News12NJ (@News12NJ) May 26, 2026

Where does this leave DHS, and what are they doing about it?

So far, the response hasn’t really been one.

Mullins issued what I’m guessing he felt was a strongly worded statement.

This is nothing more than a political stunt by New Jersey sanctuary politicians for fundraising clicks.

There is NO hunger strike at Delaney Hall. There are no subprime conditions.
@SenBooker, @SenatorAndyKim, @RepMenendez, @RepNellie, @FrankPallone, @GovSherrillNJ and dozens… https://t.co/Lg3c3B2Q9A

— Secretary Markwayne Mullin (@SecMullinDHS) May 25, 2026

...and dozens of New Jersey sanctuary politicians chose to spend their Memorial Day weekend smearing ICE law enforcement. They should be thanking our law enforcement for removing these murderers, pedophiles, rapists, and drug traffickers from their state.

Would these sanctuary politicians like to house these criminals in their homes or have them as neighbors?

We need these sanctuary politicians to stop peddling this garbage and cooperate with us to get these criminals out of their state.

DHS backed up his assertion that there was no hunger strike and technically by their rules there isn’t, because if a detainee doesn’t eat for 72 hours, they get medical attention. Everyone gets three squares, showers, medical, etc.

In another change this morning, too, riot gear appeared on the ICE agents, and they have begun physically shifting protestors out of the way.

WATCH: Protesters clash with law enforcement officers outside an ICE facility in Newark, New Jersey, just a day after their initial demonstration turned chaotic.

ICE agents in riot gear arrived Monday afternoon to clear protesters blocking Delaney Hall’s entrance over concerns… pic.twitter.com/78P0BzfdOR

— Fox News (@FoxNews) May 26, 2026

And it seems the feds have managed to scrounge up the equipment to start removing the crap that the group surrounded the front gates of the facility with over the weekend.

UPDATE: Crews tow away the pink trash container that anti-ICE protesters dumpster-dived yesterday, pulling items from inside to build barricades blocking exits at Delaney Hall ICE Detention Center in Newark, NJ.

ICE officers stand by during the removal. https://t.co/12X0tn1sJQ pic.twitter.com/UwN126brBn

— Oliya Scootercaster 🛴 (@ScooterCasterNY) May 26, 2026

I’m not sure what the delay was. Some people speculate that there was a bit of a wait-them-out period, rather than going into conflict from the get-go, thanks to ongoing lawsuits and legal actions that are hampering nearly every ICE and immigration enforcement action in progress.

Cool heads and a softer touch got them nowhere but more protesters becoming ever more aggressive and demanding.

There is no dealing with these lunatics, and it quickly reaches a stage, especially when there is no local law enforcement cooperation, where it’s deadly dangerous for everyone concerned, both law enforcement and the detainees these crackheads are reportedly trying to save. In all honesty, everyone knows these Antifa and anarchist types – they’d just as soon burn the building down with everyone in it and make the illegals martyrs.

In January, the New York Times was taking a collective gulp over how the Trump administration’s enforcement efforts were rapidly changing the immgration picture.

Over the past year, President Trump’s administration has deported about 230,000 people who were arrested inside the country and another 270,000 at the border, a New York Times analysis of federal data shows.

The number of deportations from interior arrests since Mr. Trump took office is already higher than the total during the entire four years of the Biden administration. It offers the clearest measure of the impact of Mr. Trump’s immigration crackdown and expansive efforts to fulfill his campaign promise to deport millions of people.

At the same time, the number of people trying to cross the Southwest border has fallen to record lows. As a result, far fewer people were arrested and deported from the border than in the preceding few years.

It was almost as if they were trying to sound an alarm that Trump might ‘fufill…that campaign promise’ on deportations.

The numbers just released for the first full year of the Trump administration, in spite of all the nonstop legal setbacks and violent, orchestrated opposition, are pretty damn impressive, given that they had to simultaneously be on the offense and defense all the time.

President Donald Trump’s first year back in office has seen more than 3 million illegal immigrants leave the United States, including an estimated 2.2 million “self-deportations,” according to figures shared with Fox News Digital by the Department of Homeland Security.

DHS said the administration has also deported nearly 900,000 illegal immigrants and arrested more than 900,000 others as of May 17, framing the numbers as evidence Trump’s immigration crackdown is reshaping migration patterns after record illegal crossings during former President Joe Biden’s administration.

“In President Trump’s first year back in office, more than 3 million illegal aliens have left the U.S. because of the Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration including an estimated 2.2 million self-deportations,” a DHS spokesperson told Fox News Digital.

I can’t imagine what they’d be if the opposition were half as fierce, which would still be substantial. Even if blue cities and states simply followed the law instead of subverting it, what a difference it would make.

I see this Newark encounter as a skirmish – a test run. The visuals for the Democrats are going to be so important going into a mid-term where they should be cleaning up at the polls, but do they dare have another Summer of Love with the candidates they have and the baggage they are already carrying?

And the party itself has no money to spare, nor correct any mistakes made by any of these candidates…or their footsoldiers.

Trump might not be as popular at the moment because of gas prices or whatever the particular beef someone has with him, but you know what else is even less popular?

Illegal aliens and burning down cities for them. I think politicians who fly too close to those flames this summer could wind up like Icarus.

Squawk about the oligarchy at rallies after your private jet flight all you want, but that’s the truth.

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