Hundreds of protesters seized control of a major industrial boulevard outside an immigration detention center in Newark, New Jersey, late Wednesday, directing traffic, piling barricades at facility entrances, and confronting federal agents, while the city's police department was nowhere in sight. Not a single Newark Police cruiser appeared on Doremus Avenue to restore order. Officers were instead stationed miles away near the Prudential Center, helping concertgoers.
The scene outside Delaney Hall, a federal detention facility operated by contractor GEO Group, amounted to a live demonstration of what happens when a sanctuary city's leadership decides that obstructing immigration enforcement matters more than maintaining basic public order. ICE agents, left to manage the chaos alone, deployed pepper spray and tear gas after a federal vehicle attempted to enter the facility grounds and met a wall of bodies and debris.
Fox News Digital reported that protesters dressed in reflective vests, mimicking fire police, took it upon themselves to direct two-way traffic on Doremus Avenue after reducing the road to a single lane. By 9 p.m. ET, the southbound lane was completely blocked. Mattresses, bollards, tree branches, and at least one sandbag had been dragged to the facility's sally port entrance. Demonstrators offered each other goggles and tape in apparent preparation for a confrontation with federal agents.
The only law enforcement presence from any local agency was a single Essex County Sheriff's deputy who briefly drove through the area, announced over a loudspeaker that protesters should move to the sidewalk, and left within seconds. The Essex County Sheriff's Office did not respond to a Fox News inquiry about the balance of enforcement responsibilities. Neither did the Newark Police Department.
Mayor Ras Baraka, who exercises direct control over the city's police force through a 2015 consolidation that merged police and emergency management under his authority, also did not respond to a request for comment on the absence of officers. That consolidation created an "Office of Emergency Management and Homeland Security" answerable to the mayor, a move Baraka promoted at the time as one that "enhances [public safety] by making the operations of these essential services more efficient and effective."
Efficient and effective, apparently, unless the emergency involves enforcing federal law that the mayor opposes.
The police vacuum did not materialize by accident. Baraka has built a political identity around resisting federal immigration enforcement. He issued an executive order, the date of which remains unclear, requiring all city employees to report ICE activity that "seems abusive, unconstitutional," or appears outside Newark's law enforcement policies. The order also bars police from cooperating in immigration enforcement without a warrant or judicial order.
In a column published in the New Jersey Globe, Baraka declared that "sanctuary cities" like Newark are the "new Thin Blue Line in America." He was arrested outside Delaney Hall roughly a year ago during a similar protest. And in a formal statement released amid this week's confrontation, the mayor said his city was "fighting to stop ICE agents from violating the Constitution of our residents and ignoring [local ordinances] and law enforcement policies."
The pattern is not unique to Newark. Minnesota's state senate recently advanced legislation designed to restrict ICE operations and expose agents to lawsuits, part of a broader Democratic effort to place legal and logistical obstacles in the path of federal immigration enforcement.
While Newark police stayed away, elected Democrats showed up in force. U.S. Representatives Jerrold Nadler, Daniel Goldman, and Adriano Espaillat, all Manhattan-area Democrats, gained legal entry to the facility through what Fox News identified as a Manhattan entrance. They later held a news conference outside, claiming inmates told them they were only offered Tylenol for any ailments.
New Jersey Governor Mikie Sherrill, who defeated Baraka in the 2025 Democratic gubernatorial primary, had appeared at Delaney Hall the day before, voicing her own objections to the facility. The Washington Times reported that approximately 125 demonstrators had surrounded the facility on Monday, blocking entrances and exits, and that ICE agents deployed pepper spray and riot gear to clear those blockades. Senator Andy Kim was pepper-sprayed by ICE agents while attempting to de-escalate the situation, and said he had to call DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin directly to gain access.
The Department of Homeland Security defended its agents, stating they used "the minimum amount of force necessary to protect themselves, the public, and federal property" after demonstrators blocked the facility's entrances and exits.
The confrontations at Delaney Hall followed days of escalating clashes between New Jersey Democrats and ICE agents at the same location, with elected officials demanding access and federal authorities insisting on operational security.
The mayor's formal statement called on New Jersey Attorney General Jennifer Davenport and Governor Sherrill to "immediately investigate Delaney Hall." He cited a year-long legal dispute with GEO Group, alleging the contractor failed to comply with municipal ordinances and repeatedly denied access to city health, fire, and code enforcement inspectors.
"For the past year, the City has been engaged in litigation with the GEO Group due to its failure to comply with municipal ordinances when it began operating Delaney Hall. Our concerns remain unresolved, as critical city agencies, including the Health Department, Fire Division, and Code Enforcement, have repeatedly been denied access to inspect the facility."
Baraka also claimed that "smuggled out" letters from detainees described inferior conditions and a lack of medical treatment. He closed his statement with a call to "uphold the rule of law, ensure accountability, and protect the dignity and rights of some of the most vulnerable individuals in our care."
The invocation of "the rule of law" from a mayor whose own police force stood down while protesters illegally blocked a public road, barricaded a federal facility, and took over traffic management on an industrial boulevard is a remarkable piece of rhetoric. Baraka did not explain how allowing hundreds of people to shut down Doremus Avenue without consequence upholds any law at all.
The standoff fits a wider pattern of Democratic officials treating ICE detention facilities as stages for political confrontation rather than as components of a lawful federal enforcement system.
Doremus Avenue is not a residential side street. It is an industrial boulevard with freight tracks running alongside it, a corridor used by truck drivers and commercial vehicles. The New York Post reported that at least one truck driver confronted protesters after being blocked from doing his job. A New Jersey Transit bus was briefly trapped in the protester-created traffic jam as well.
None of this disruption prompted a police response. The people who depend on that road for their livelihoods, drivers, warehouse workers, commuters, were left to fend for themselves while the city's officers helped people find parking at a concert venue downtown.
Meanwhile, protests continued to escalate at the facility, with detainees reportedly claiming a hunger strike, adding another layer of pressure on federal authorities already managing the situation without local law enforcement support.
What happened on Doremus Avenue is the logical endpoint of sanctuary city governance. A mayor who built his brand on defying federal immigration enforcement used the police force he personally controls to leave federal agents isolated and unassisted. Protesters took over a public road with impunity. Working people were stuck. And the only official response from City Hall was a press release demanding that someone else investigate the federal facility the mayor has been trying to shut down for a year.
Baraka's 2015 consolidation of police authority under the mayor's office was sold as a way to make public safety "more efficient." In practice, it gave one elected official a direct lever to decide which emergencies get a police response and which do not. When the emergency involves a concert, officers show up. When it involves a federal detention center the mayor wants gone, the streets go dark.
The broader regional pattern of Democratic officials working to sever local law enforcement from federal immigration operations is accelerating. In New York, governors and judges have moved to block ICE from courthouses and ban cooperation agreements. In New Jersey, a mayor simply pulls his cops off the street and lets the mob do the rest.
Fox News Digital reported that Baraka's office did not respond to its request for comment on the police absence. The Essex County Sheriff's Office was equally silent. No arrests were reported. No injuries were confirmed. The detention center remained operational, but only because ICE agents held the line themselves, with pepper spray and tear gas, on a road that local authorities abandoned.
Several questions remain unanswered. How many detainees are held inside Delaney Hall? What specific municipal ordinances does the city's lawsuit against GEO Group allege were violated? Did the federal vehicle that triggered the pepper spray deployment successfully enter the facility? And most pointedly: did Mayor Baraka or anyone in his administration issue a directive, formal or informal, ordering Newark police to stay away from Delaney Hall?
The facts already on the table tell a clear enough story. A city government chose political solidarity with protesters over its most basic obligation: keeping a public road open and safe. ICE agents were left to manage a hostile crowd, a barricaded entrance, and an industrial boulevard turned into an obstacle course, all within the jurisdiction of a police department that answered to a mayor who had already announced which side he was on.
When a mayor brags about being the "new Thin Blue Line" and then pulls the actual blue line off the street, the only people protected are the ones breaking the law.
