Senator Pepper-Sprayed At New Jersey ICE Facility

Sen. Andy Kim spent Memorial Day in the kind of scene Washington usually debates from a safe distance: standing between protesters and federal agents outside an immigration detention center, then coughing through pepper spray.

ICE officers deployed chemical irritants as demonstrators gathered at Delaney Hall in Newark, New Jersey, where detainees had launched a hunger and work strike. According to NJ.com/NorthJersey.com, Kim tried to defuse the confrontation before agents pushed forward.

Delaney Hall is no ordinary local flashpoint. The 1,000-bed, privately run facility opened on May 1, 2025, as part of the Trump administration's aggressive push to expand immigration detention capacity. It currently houses about 300 people.

The immediate clash began after protesters gathered in support of detainees who were on strike over alleged medical neglect and living conditions inside the facility.

Organizer Gabriela Soto had reportedly been outside Delaney Hall since Friday, when the hunger and work strike began. By Monday, the standoff had escalated dramatically: federal agents, an armored vehicle, protesters, and a U.S. senator caught in the middle of it all.

Kim said ICE officials told him they were going to push through the crowd with their vehicle. He said he tried to negotiate a calmer route: "I tried to arrange a situation where people would not get hurt, where there wouldn't be a confrontation. Unfortunately, ICE just continued on."

Moments later, he said he saw people getting tackled and ran forward to put himself between agents and the crowd as they "started shooting at us with pepper balls and using pepper spray."

Footage shared online showed Kim slumped in a folding camp chair while volunteers in blue medical gloves rinsed his eyes with bottled water and wiped chemical residue from his suit jacket. "It's just burning," he said after inhaling the chemicals. Kim said he had trouble breathing after the spray was deployed. His state director, Paul Stuart Aronsohn, was also pepper-sprayed.

For Delaney Hall, the scene was only the latest ugly chapter. Newark Mayor Ras Baraka was arrested and detained by federal immigration agents during a protest there in May 2025. A month later, four detainees broke out during a revolt over food, and Rep. LaMonica McIver was indicted for allegedly interfering with federal officers during a congressional oversight visit. She has pleaded not guilty.

By Monday afternoon, the fight had widened beyond the fence line. Gov. Mikie Sherrill was denied access to the facility and said, according to the New Jersey Globe, "My request for access to Delaney Hall was formally denied this morning, raising serious questions about what they are trying to hide from public view." Rep. Frank Pallone was even more direct, saying, "The conditions are absolutely outrageous. This place needs to be closed down."

Kim, posting from his official account, accused ICE of escalating rather than engaging. "Instead of engaging with me and others about the poor conditions, ICE sent in an armored vehicle and a line of armed agents that only poured gasoline on the fire," he wrote.

Republicans and the Department of Homeland Security cast the episode very differently. Acting Assistant Secretary Lauren Biss said in an official DHS statement that the demonstration was "nothing more than a political stunt by New Jersey sanctuary politicians for fundraising clicks," according to CNN. DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin echoed the same language in a post on X.

Assemblyman Gerald Scharfenberger also accused Kim and Sherrill of staging a "cheap photo-op" while others were honoring fallen service members.

Kim's closing verdict wasn't subtle. "What I witnessed and experienced today was shameful," he said. "Delaney Hall is a failure; it's this administration's failure. The only way to make this right for our communities is to shut it down."