JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
The mayor of Newark, New Jersey, issued an indefinite curfew around the Delaney Hall Detention Facility early Sunday. From 9 p.m. to 6 a.m., the half-mile radius surrounding the facility is closed to all pedestrians. The immigration detention center has been the site of intense protests since last month. Those protests have become increasingly violent in recent days. They began as a result of a hunger and labor strike inside the facility over what detainees say are poor living conditions and human rights violations. Ras Baraka is the mayor of Newark, and he joins me now. Welcome to the program.
RAS BARAKA: Thank you for having me.
SUMMERS: Mr. Mayor, protests have been taking place around this detention facility for several days now. So I want to ask you, was there a specific tipping point that led you to your decision to issue a curfew?
BARAKA: Yeah. Actually, the protests have been going on for well over a year before the Delaney Hall even opened up, you know? So there have been people out there every day without incident, every single day. And I've been there a couple of those days. One of those days I was arrested.
SUMMERS: Right. What changed, though? What's changed?
BARAKA: Well, the escalation - ICE has come and escalated as they normally do. Now the area had become unsafe. Obviously, there was a fire burning in the middle of the street, people throwing tires in the middle of a fire. A couple of individuals were caught with guns, pepper guns or whatever kind of other gun they had. It is becoming untenable out there and difficult. Like, our job, obviously, is to make sure people are safe and that they can...
SUMMERS: Yeah.
BARAKA: ...Protest safely. So we established a curfew out there. While I don't agree with the tactics that are happening out there from ICE or the state police, as of tonight, Newark will be taking over command of this.
SUMMERS: OK.
BARAKA: Because we cannot continue to watch what's going on, you know, in good conscience.
SUMMERS: I want to note here that, of course, not all protesters who are there are engaging in violence, but...
BARAKA: Oh, absolutely not.
SUMMERS: ...What do you know, if anything, about who is perpetrating the violence that has taken place outside?
BARAKA: Well, that's a good question because I don't know. And I think it is not fair for people to say who they are. You don't know if they're protesters. You don't know who they are. They could be, you know, people who are pro-ICE. They could be White supremacists (ph). It could be anybody, for that matter. Who knows? 'Cause we don't know them. We are getting intelligence - gathering intelligence and may make some arrests. We don't know these people who are, in fact, doing that. But as I said earlier, protesters have been out there well...
SUMMERS: Right.
BARAKA: ...Over a year, a year, and nobody has been focused on Delaney Hall like this, trying to close it down every single day. So...
SUMMERS: I want to ask you about what the Department of Homeland Security has had to say about what's happening there.
BARAKA: Yeah.
SUMMERS: They have a website debunking what they say are misconceptions about what's taking...
BARAKA: Sure.
SUMMERS: ...Place there at Delaney Hall. And in response to claims that protesters were attacked by pepper spray, they write, quote, "on May 25, 2026, rioters obstructed law enforcement from exiting the ICE facility." They go on to say that officers issued multiple lawful, verbal commands for rioters to clear the area. They say that law enforcement followed their training, used the minimum amount of force necessary...
BARAKA: Right.
SUMMERS: ...To protect themselves, the public and federal property. Sir, how do you respond?
BARAKA: Right. Well, you know, that version of the story is incorrect. They probably used their training. Their training was designed to do what they did. And they pushed back into the crowd. The right part is they were trying to leave the facility during shift change. And there's multiple exits that they can leave at. They don't have to leave through that front exit. They did that - created a situation that was unsafe and pushed people into the street, which is why Newark began to direct traffic...
SUMMERS: OK.
BARAKA: ...Because they began to push people into a street of moving tractor trailers. This is not a residential area, by the way...
SUMMERS: Right.
BARAKA: ...As people know. This is an industrial area of trucks and very flammable materials all around there.
SUMMERS: During a Cabinet meeting recently, Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin said that if detainees there at Delaney Hall - if they don't like the conditions, if they don't like the food, he says they're free to voluntarily leave the country. How do you respond to that?
BARAKA: Well, that's just not true. But first of all, it is barbaric and inhumane to do what they're doing. But it's not true. There are people who have been given by the judge the opportunity to actually leave voluntarily, and they've been denied by GEO, clearly, because these people are getting money to house people in their detention facility. This fight we're having is with GEO. This is the fight the city has been having with this private company that is being shielded by ICE.
SUMMERS: You mentioned earlier that Newark is going to be taking over some control. What are you doing? What can you do to ensure that the violence does not continue to escalate, that it doesn't get worse?
BARAKA: Well, one, we have to de-escalate. We can't come out there with shields and busloads of police and pepper spray. We have protests in the city almost every week - in the city of Newark. Our officers are trained in de-escalation and dealing with protests - people's ability to protest freely. I think that the escalation started with ICE. I think the state police followed that, and they shouldn't have. I mean, look, the state police is a sword. I mean, if you don't think - if you don't want to get cut, you can't bring a sword. Them guys shouldn't have been there at the way that they...
SUMMERS: OK.
BARAKA: ...Were deployed. And other - we got community service officers. We have community folks.
SUMMERS: Right.
BARAKA: We could de-escalate without turning it into what it has turned into. And we're going to show more involvement...
SUMMERS: OK.
BARAKA: ...This evening.
SUMMERS: You know, we've got about a minute left here. I have to say, as I've been watching the images and videos come out of your city in recent days as these clashes between protesters and law enforcement have intensified, it's really hard not to think about what we saw happen earlier this year in another U.S. city, in Minneapolis.
BARAKA: Right.
SUMMERS: Are you concerned about it escalating to that level, potential loss of life?
BARAKA: I am. Absolutely. And I think, honestly, that's why the governor acted because, you know, Homeland Security had threatened to bring 30 tactical units into the city, and some of them were already here moving into the city. And I guess her thinking was that they needed to act before Homeland Security acted. And I agree with that notion. I just don't agree with the way, you know, the state police behaved just like ICE. We shouldn't have took on their persona.
SUMMERS: Last thing, we've got a few seconds left here. As people around the country continue to watch what's taking place there in Newark, what do you want people outside of New Jersey to know right now?
BARAKA: Right. That we need to be focused on what's going on inside of Delaney Hall.
SUMMERS: OK.
BARAKA: A lot of attention is being pushed on what's happening outside. There are people, pregnant women who have miscarried, food that is terrible, disease that is being let to run rampant.
SUMMERS: OK.
BARAKA: The conditions are horrible.
SUMMERS: All right. We'll have to leave it there, unfortunately.
BARAKA: Yeah.
SUMMERS: Ras Baraka is the mayor of Newark, New Jersey. Thank you for your time, Sir.
BARAKA: You got it. Thank you.
SUMMERS: NPR reached out to Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin to discuss the protests at the Delaney Hall Detention Facility. He turned down our request for an interview. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
