NEWARK, N.J. – A New Jersey senator says he and other demonstrators were pepper sprayed by federal agents during a protest at an immigrant detention center in the state.
Protesters and federal immigration officers clashed outside Delaney Hall in Newark Monday. In an X post, Sen. Andy Kim says he saw ICE agents tackling civilians and firing pepper balls into a crowd during the protest.
“The armed agents pushed through the crowd, throwing several people onto the street,” Kim says in the X post.
In the post, he says he ran over and stood between the ICE convoy and the crowd, trying to keep physical separation to prevent even more serious clashes.
The last vehicle had an agent with a pepper ball gun, and he started firing at Kim and the protestors’ feet and past him towards the crowd, Kim says in the social media post.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security addressed the protests and federal agents’ response in an X post, saying nobody was directly hit by pepper ball projectiles. In the post, the department says the protesters obstructed law enforcement from leaving the ICE facility.
“Our law enforcement followed their training and used the minimum amount of force necessary to protect themselves, the public, and federal property,” Homeland Security says in the social media post.
Hundreds of detainees there began a hunger strike at the center last Friday to protest living conditions.
Gov. Mikie Sherrill and other officials tried to enter the facility, but they say federal authorities turned them away. The immigrant detention center has been accused of inhumane conditions.
The Department of Homeland Security dismissed the Memorial Day visit as a political stunt and defended the facility’s conditions.