Four men escaped from a privately run immigration detention center in Newark during a disturbance on Thursday after days of unrest over conditions, according to a law enforcement official in New Jersey, a federal spokeswoman and other detainees’ lawyers.
“Additional law enforcement partners have been brought in to find these escapees,” Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman from the Department of Homeland Security, said Friday in a text message.
The detention center, known as Delaney Hall, went into lockdown after dozens of law enforcement officials responded to reports of a disturbance inside the facility on Thursday evening, according to lawyers who have clients detained inside.
A group of migrants inside the facility seemed to mount a revolt on Thursday following days of unrest over the quality and timeliness of meals, the lawyers and relatives who spoke to the detainees over the phone said in interviews.
“People were hungry and got very angry and started to react and started to rebel against what was going on in the detention center,” said Ellen Whitt, a volunteer who works at DIRE, an emergency immigration hotline. A DIRE staff member received a call about 6 p.m. from one detainee, Ms. Whitt said, and “when we were on the phone with him, we could hear screaming and yelling in the background.”
The detainee said that people were trying to break windows and that, at one point, guards seemed to have abandoned their posts, she said.
A law enforcement official familiar with the details of the escape said that the missing men appeared to have exited the building through an unhinged piece of exterior siding.
Masked officers carrying plastic handcuffs and pepper spray could be seen entering the facility just after 7 p.m., and people standing nearby reported smelling a pungent odor. The commotion drew protesters to the facility’s gates who sought to barricade the entrance of the facility.
On Friday morning, officials at the detention facility told immigration lawyers with clients at Delaney Hall that phone calls and visits had been suspended, said Karla Ostolaza, the managing director of the immigration practice at Bronx Defenders. The lawyers were told they should check back next week.
“We have no idea what is happening with our clients right now,” Ms. Ostolaza said.
Mustafa Cetin, a lawyer who has been representing a Turkish man working toward citizenship, said he got an email from the facility at 7:37 a.m. on Friday notifying him that “all movement,” including meetings with lawyers, had been canceled “until further notice.”
