Scores demonstrate in Philly as appeals court considers a N.J. ban on ICE detention-center contracts
The case is being heard as New Jersey, home to a single detention center, could see three more open.
Voices of prayer and protest echoed outside the federal courthouse in Philadelphia on Thursday as an appeals court began to consider whether to fully restore a New Jersey state ban on immigration-detention contracts.
The case lands amid the contentious national discussion over the confinement of immigrants in the United States — half of those in detention have no criminal record — and the debate over the ability of states and cities to control what occurs within their jurisdictions.
“My parents came here to give me a better education,” said college student Sol Acabo, who drove an hour from New Jersey to take part in the protest on Market Street. “I’m using that privilege to fight for those that can’t.”
About 150 people from about 40 pro-immigrant groups from Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York gathered on the sidewalk outside the Market Street courthouse, while on the 19th floor the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit began considering a case with potentially wide ramifications.
The case is being heard as New Jersey, home to a single detention center, could potentially see three more open within months or years.
“Immigrant detention centers are inhumane, cruel, and unnecessary,” Emily Lúa-Lúa, the lead and youth organizer at Make the Road Pennsylvania, told the crowd, calling the centers “concentration camps.”
Locking away alleged immigration violators does not make society safer, she said. In fact, she said, she feels safer when families and neighborhoods are left intact.
Rally organizers said that some undocumented people who wanted to attend instead opted to stay away, fearing that ICE officers might target the event. That held down the size of the crowd, they said.
The legal case goes back to 2021, when Gov. Phil Murphy signed a law that barred private and public entities from entering into contracts with ICE to detain immigrants.
Activists hailed the law as a victory for immigrant rights and credited it with prompting the closure of three county-run detention centers.
The state law was challenged by CoreCivic, a private prison firm, and in 2023 a federal judge partly sided with the company, calling the law “a dagger aimed at the heart of the federal government’s immigration enforcement mission and operations.”
The judge ruled that the state could bar public bodies from contracting with ICE to confine immigrants but could not ban private companies from doing the same.
Today CoreCivic continues to operate the ICE center in Elizabeth, the state’s only immigration-detention facility, which holds about 285 migrants on a typical day.
“Our sole job has been and continues to be to help the government solve problems in ways it could not do alone,” CoreCivic spokesperson Ryan Gustin said Thursday, and that includes helping to “create safer communities by assisting with the current immigration challenges.”
CoreCivic has worked under both Democratic and Republic administrations for 40 years, he said, including more than 20 at the center in Elizabeth.
“We appreciate that we’ve had and continue to have the opportunity to present our positions to the courts, and are grateful that we have the privilege of continuing to support the vital mission of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Department of Homeland Security,” Gustin said.
ICE officials did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
Attorney Jeremy Feigenbaum, representing the state of New Jersey, thanked the crowd outside the courthouse after leaving the appeals court but said he could not discuss details of what occurred inside.
Dante Apaestegui of the New Jersey Alliance for Immigrant Justice, who was in the courtroom, told The Inquirer that no settlement was reached during the hearing.
The New Jersey alliance led the rally along with partners including Philadelphia-based VietLead, the Pennsylvania Immigration Coalition, and the Free Migration Project.
All want the appeals court to fully restore the state law.
Pennsylvania is home to four institutions that hold ICE detainees — the federal prison in downtown Philadelphia, the Pike County Correctional Facility, the Clinton County Correctional Facility, and the 1,876-bed Moshannon Valley Processing Center in Clearfield County.
Nationally, ICE confines about 48,000 immigrants who are awaiting hearings or deportation. About 46% have no criminal record.
Now ICE intends to open a 1,000-bed detention center in Newark, part of what is become an expanding federal effort to detain more immigrants in the Garden State.
Former President Joe Biden had ICE begin exploring ways to add 600 detention beds in the state. More recently the Trump administration has been working on plans to detain thousands of immigrants at military bases, including at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, the sprawling installation in South Jersey.
The Union County Board of Commissioners has begun the process of selling the county jail to a private prison company, the watchdog project Documented reported, leading many to believe that the property ultimately will be used as an ICE detention center.
Newark Mayor Ras Baraka has opposed ICE’s plans to locate what would be the state’s second detention center in the city, citing concerns about a lack of proper permitting and the potential health and social impacts on the community.
The GEO Group, a private prison company, announced in February that it had been awarded a 15-year, $1 billion ICE contract to establish and run the center at its Delaney Hall facility. That came as Trump pushed forward on what he has pledged will be the largest deportation campaign in American history, driving the removal of millions of immigrants.
“We are continuing to prepare for what we believe is an unprecedented opportunity to help the federal government meet its expanded immigration enforcement priorities,” GEO executive chairman George Zoley said earlier this year.
On Thursday, Jenny Garcia told The Inquirer that her family is no longer complete.
A year ago, she said as the demonstration whirled around her, her cousin didn’t come home at the end of the day. His loved ones learned he had been detained by immigration agents, then subsequently bounced to six different facilities before being deported to his native Honduras.
“What really broke him,” said the Detention Watch Network organizer, “was spending his 25th birthday in detention. … New Jersey has decided we don’t want this.”