New Jersey State Police moved into positions around the Delaney Hall immigration detention center on Friday, establishing designated protest zones and vehicle checkpoints after days of clashes between demonstrators and federal immigration enforcement officers.
Governor Mikie Sherrill, a Democrat, announced the deployment at a news conference, saying the situation had become too volatile to leave to ICE agents. “It has grown unsafe, and that’s completely unacceptable,” Sherrill said. “We need to take this opportunity to lower the temperature.”
As state police erected barriers, ICE agents who had been forming a line in front of the protesters withdrew behind the facility’s perimeter fence. Lt. Col. David Sierotowicz, a state police spokesperson, said ICE officers agreed to stand down and allow state troopers to assume responsibility for security outside the center.
The protests at Delaney Hall have drawn crowds daily, with tensions heightening after nightfall. The demonstrators have been calling attention to conditions inside the facility and to the Trump administration’s broader immigration crackdown. The governor’s intervention comes after several nights where clashes between protesters and ICE agents escalated, leading to arrests and injuries.
Sherrill’s deployment of state police marks a shift in the state-federal dynamic at the facility, which is operated by ICE under contract with a private prison company. The move underscores the growing friction between Democratic-led states and the Trump administration over immigration enforcement and the conditions of detention.