Abby Zimet: We Shall Not Be Moved Chap. 784

Three days after ICE goons arrested Newark Mayor Ras Baraka for doing his job and exercising his First Amendment right to protest the regime’s illegal disappearing of his constituents, about 50 faith leaders gathered at the same facility Monday to link their arms, block the entrance, demand information on conditions inside and declare, “This is not acceptable” – after which they too were set upon by goons. One minister: “This is the enactment of a police state.”

In February, ICE was awarded a contract with the GEO Group to operate its formerly shuttered, 1,100-bed Delaney Hall, in an industrial area outside Newark, as a for-profit detention center for immigrants facing deportation. Despite widespread opposition and a still-pending lawsuit by the city over compliance with multiple permits, ICE began delivering detainees there on May 1. Last Friday, three New Jersey members of Congress went to the site and, acting on their legal right to conduct Congressional oversight, sought a tour of the facility. Because the current regime no longer cares about anyone’s legal rights, they were banned.

They were joined by Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, also acting on his legal right to protect his constituents, and also banned. After a scuffle with ICE and police thugs, he was arrested, held for five hours and charged with trespassing. According to New Jersey acting Barbie Attorney Alina Habba, Baraka was “repeatedly told” he had to leave; according to Baraka, that’s bullshit. The House members there – Reps. LaMonica McIver, Bonnie Coleman, Rob Menendez – said the thugs had escalated the situation and the claim was “a lie,” “absurd,” “scary,” and another effort of a regime “lying at all levels (to) intimidate people in this country.” 

Given that effort is ongoing, ICE’s parent agency Homeland Security issued a statement charging House members “stormed the gate and broke into the detention facility” despite its barbed-wire-topped entrance. Calling the presence of the lawmakers “a cheap political stunt,” they also charged they had put law enforcement, staff and detainees “at risk,” with a spokesperson hysterically shrieking, “Who do they want released from Delaney Hall? The child rapists, murderers, drug traffickers, MS-13 gang members or known terrorists?” even though none of the detainees have been convicted, or often even charged, with any crimes.

The members of Faith in New Jersey, Faith in Action, Pax Christi and other clergy who came Monday in solidarity to Delaney cited that “immigration narrative that’s been very criminalizing” as part of their protest. Right-wing media coverage of their presence confirmed the charge: A Fox News headline proclaimed Agitators Clash With Police As Clergy Members Descend – armed, they might have added, with their liturgical stoles reading, “Side With Love.” Other headlines called the gathering “an interfaith prayer service” and described them linking arms, standing shoulder to shoulder, praying for detainees and singing Which Side Are You On?

Spread across the entrance, they also demanded transparency from officials, seeking the names of detainees, the conditions – beds, food, medical care – and who’s profiting from them. Said one, “A lot of human rights violations are happening across the U.S., and this one is not going to be any different.” At around 5 p.m., as employees began driving out the gate, things again escalated. In a surreal scene, beefy police and ICE agents started shoving and muscling protesters away; skirmishes broke out as they resisted, entreated, chanted, yelled, then finally struggled back together, re-linked arms and began singing, “We Shall Not Be Moved.”

At least two people were arrested; dystopian videos showed a phalanx of police manhandling one woman in a hijab and hauling her away as others struggled to stop them. But those who remained were steadfast. “We will continue to show up,” said one. “Think of the names of all the people who have been disappeared from your community…We’ll be here as long as it takes until people start to realize that this is not acceptable.” “I’m here because my Universalist faith tells me to love the Hell out of this world,” said the Rev. Anya Sammler of the Universalist Unitarian Congregation in Montclair. “And what we are seeing in this world is Hell.”

First published in Common Dreams. Licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.

Abby Zimet has written CD’s Further column since 2008. A longtime, award-winning journalist, she moved to the Maine woods in the early 70s, where she spent a dozen years building a house, hauling water and writing before moving to Portland. Having come of political age during the Vietnam War, she has long been involved in women’s, labor, anti-war, social justice and refugee rights issues.