On Thursday, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced that the Delaney Hall Facility in Newark is set to reopen as a federal immigration processing and detention center, with a capacity of 1,000 beds.
This facility, which will operate under a $1 billion agreement, represents a significant expansion of ICE’s detention capabilities in the Northeast, as noted by both ICE and the private company managing it. The reopening follows an agreement with the facility’s owner, marking it as the first new detention center to be opened under the Trump administration.
“This detention center is the first to open under the new administration,” said acting ICE Director Caleb Vitello. “The location near an international airport streamlines logistics and helps facilitate the timely processing of individuals in our custody as we pursue President Trump’s mandate to arrest, detain, and remove illegal aliens from our communities.” The Delaney Hall Facility had been used previously to house immigrant detainees from 2011 to 2017. Its reopening enhances ICE’s efforts to carry out enforcement and removal actions in the area. GEO Group, a private prison corporation, operates this facility and also manages the ICE Air program, which utilizes Newark Liberty International Airport for both domestic transfers and international deportations, as reported by the New Jersey Alliance for Immigrant Justice.
In December, various locations were being considered for ICE contracts. “GEO’s support services include exclusive use of the facility by ICE along with security, maintenance, food services, access to recreational areas, medical care, and legal counsel,” GEO Group stated. “We estimate the value of the facility to be $60 million dollars in the first year of operations. We estimate the 15-year value of the contract, with cost of living adjustments, to be $1 billion dollars.” The New Jersey Alliance for Immigrant Justice called the reopening of the facility “a significant setback for New Jersey.” The group pointed out that although New Jersey’s federal lawmakers have consistently opposed ICE’s expansion, the state legislature has not passed any laws protecting immigrants from ICE’s data requests and encroachment. The organization also raised concerns that statements from ICE suggest that this facility will serve as a regional enforcement hub for the Northeast.
While the administration has stated that its priority is to target criminals for arrest and deportation, statistics indicate that a significant portion of detainees have no criminal record. According to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) at Syracuse University, as of February 9, 2025, 54.7% of the 41,169 individuals in ICE custody had no criminal history.
The Trump administration’s mass deportation efforts are primarily led by ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations unit. In mid-February, Tom Homan, the White House border czar, remarked that arrests within the U.S. (as opposed to at the border) had tripled compared to the same period under President Joe Biden. However, he expressed dissatisfaction with the current rate of arrests. “I’m not satisfied,” Homan said. “We got to get more.”
Despite the administration’s aggressive tactics, ICE has not provided much transparency regarding the number of arrests made. Between January 23 and January 31, ICE shared daily arrest statistics on X but then ceased. The agency’s data dashboard offers quarterly data, with the most recent figures available from September 2024. During the brief period when daily arrest updates were posted, an average of 787 arrests were made per day, a significant increase from the 311 arrests per day during the 12-month period ending on September 30 under the Biden administration. Executing large-scale deportations is fraught with logistical issues. ICE is limited by the number of enforcement officers, detention beds, and aircraft available for deportation efforts—resources that have remained unchanged for several years.
{Matzav.com}