Immigrant detentions in New Jersey and Pennsylvania hit highs not seen since 2011

The number of individuals arrested and held in New Jersey and Pennsylvania detention centers pending deportation hearings has risen to levels not seen since the early years of the Obama presidency, according to recently released government data.

The detained population in New Jersey surged 451% since the end of April, when only 65 newly arrested individuals were detained while awaiting deportation hearings. Pennsylvania’s detained population crossed the 300 mark in March for the first time since 2011.

As of May 31, ICE held 358 and 353 people, respectively, in New Jersey and Pennsylvania detention facilities who were detained that month as their deportation cases wound their way through immigration court.

New Jersey’s figure represents the highest number of such detentions by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in 14 years while Pennsylvania’s is the highest in 16.

The figures reflect the number of individuals detained in a given month pending removal proceedings who remain in detention at the end of the month in which they were detained. They are an undercount of detained individuals as they do not include people in so-called “expedited removal,” a process by which immigration officers can deport noncitizens from the United States without a hearing before an immigration judge.

President Donald Trump expanded the use of expedited removals upon returning to office.

The figures were published by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), a data gathering and research organization that regularly acquires and analyzes such data from the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) and ICE through Freedom of Information Act requests and litigation.

The data do not indicate which centers held the individuals, but the 1,000-bed Delaney Hall immigration detention center in Newark began housing migrants on May 1.

Jenny Garcia, a communications associate at Detention Watch Network, a national coalition that supports local communities trying to shut down local centers, has no doubt the increase is at least partly tied to the facility’s opening.

“When a detention center opens up within a state — within a community — ICE is going to fill those beds with local people — people in the tristate area," Garcia said.

The Delaney facility, located in an industrial stretch along the Passaic River, has been dogged by controversy sincebefore it even opened.

The administration of Newark Mayor Ras Baraka in March filed a lawsuit and issued a stop-work order against GEO Group, the private prison company that operates the center under a 15-year contract with ICE worth $1 billion, claiming the company blocked city building inspectors from conducting required inspections.

Baraka, a candidate in this month’s Democratic primary for the state’s governorship, was later arrested at a protest outside the center shortly after it began operating. Baraka is currently suing New Jersey U.S. Attorney Alina Habba for “false arrest and malicious prosecution.”

The U.S. Attorney’s Office last week charged four Delaney Hall detainees with attempting to escape earlier in the month amid reports of late-arriving meals and other poor conditions at the facility.

Garcia, whose group has held daily vigils outside of Delaney Hall since the center began holding migrants, said detainees have suffered from a lack of medical care and food, alternately freezing and boiling temperatures, and access to family and legal counsel.

“We’ve seen clergy get denied. We’ve seen families get denied,” Garcia said. “And, very concerningly, we’ve seen many, many lawyers get denied visits with their clients.”

A spokesperson for ICE’s Newark field office did not respond to an email seeking comment on conditions at the facility and whether the agency has been making an effort to detain more individuals now that it’s open.

While Pennsylvania did not experience the same month-over-month surge in detentions that New Jersey did, the 353 individuals held in detention pending removal proceedings is the highest number since September 2009. The state’s detained population has increased every month since last December and crossed the 300 mark in March for the first time since 2011.

Peter Pedemonti, the co-director of the New Sanctuary Movement of Philadelphia, decried the increased detentions.

“I hope everybody can look at those numbers and agree that those are 353 people who have been abducted out of our communities,” Pedemonti said. “These are our neighbors …. These are members of our community.”

The number of detained people in Pennsylvania has long been higher than that of New Jersey. Prior to May, the last time New Jersey’s total exceeded that of Pennsylvania was March 2020.

Part of that is the presence of the Moshannon Valley Processing Center. The former federal prison, located 30 miles northwest of State College, was repurposed as an ICE detention facility in 2021.

The facility is run by Geo Group, the same private prison company that operates Delaney Hall, and has faced accusations of serious mistreatment of detainees.

Activists have identified Moshannon as the ICE facility where detained Philadelphia residents are most often sent.

Pedemonti said he expects Pennsylvania’s numbers could rise even further based on anecdotal reports of increased arrests in recent weeks.

“[ICE] is under tremendous pressure to produce numbers,” Pedemonti said. “We’ve seen an uptick in the last three weeks [in arrests] in Philadelphia and before that was Norristown, and I’m sure we’ll see that in the June [detention] numbers.”

A spokesperson for ICE’s Philadelphia field office did not respond to an email seeking comment on whether the agency has recently been making an effort to detain more individuals.