Mikie Sherrill was just five months into her job as governor of New Jersey when long-simmering unease over a federal immigration lockup in Newark cascaded toward chaos.<\/p>\n
Ugly images of federal agents wielding batons as they clashed with demonstrators in gas masks were ricocheting in encrypted group chats and on social media platforms. A U.S. senator had been pepper-sprayed outside the Delaney Hall detention center. President Trump\u2019s homeland security secretary was threatening to halt international flights<\/a> at Newark Liberty International Airport two weeks before the state was set to host the FIFA World Cup soccer games. And Mr. Trump\u2019s border czar had warned state officials and Newark\u2019s mayor, Ras J. Baraka, that he was prepared to flood the streets of the state\u2019s largest city with armed agents.<\/p>\n Ms. Sherrill had no good choices.<\/p>\n \u201cIt really became our focus, my focus, to make sure no one died,\u201d she said in an interview.<\/p>\n The crisis remains a volatile, early test of Ms. Sherrill and her administration, with the potential for political fallout that could reverberate far beyond Newark. Ms. Sherrill, a moderate Democrat, has already faced criticism from the left, which has pointed to her decision to send in New Jersey State Police troopers to quell disturbances outside Delaney Hall as evidence of cooperation with the Trump administration\u2019s divisive immigration crackdown. Republicans have said that the images of unrest underscore their belief that Democrats are weak on crime.<\/p>\n \u201cIt wasn\u2019t about politics,\u201d Ms. Sherrill said of using troopers to temporarily take charge, fearing a rapid escalation by federal agents. \u201cWe knew it was going to be a tough decision.\u201d<\/p>\n The standoff between demonstrators and law enforcement officers has since made its way onto the national television news and into a performance by Bruce Springsteen, who on Thursday invoked \u201cMinneapolis and Delaney Hall\u201d before singing Woody Guthrie\u2019s \u201cDeportee\u201d during a concert in New Jersey celebrating 250 years of American music.<\/p>\n Peter McDonough Jr., a political strategist who was a close aide to Christine Todd Whitman when she was the state\u2019s Republican governor, said that for now, the typical centrist voter in New Jersey was likely to view Ms. Sherrill\u2019s decision favorably.<\/p>\n \u201cThe nonpartisan, average New Jerseyan sees her as a take-charge governor \u2014 a woman who rolls up her sleeves and steps in,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n But the crisis is far from over. A melee erupted Friday evening<\/a> between dozens of protesters and detention center employees. After dark, demonstrators repeatedly blocked vehicles trying to leave Delaney Hall and spilled pylons filled with sand into the street.<\/p>\n Federal agents charged four people with felony crimes, according to Markwayne Mullin, the Department of Homeland Security secretary.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a real high-stakes game,\u201d Mr. McDonough said. \u201cYou\u2019ve got the eyes of the world on you.\u201d<\/p>\n Detainees who had begun what they described as a hunger and labor strike over conditions within the 1,000-bed, privately run detention center had requested to meet with the governor. She showed up at the front gates of Delaney Hall three days later, on Memorial Day.<\/p>\n She was not allowed to enter.<\/p>\n But Senator Andy Kim, who as a member of Congress has oversight authority over Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities, was. Twice that day, he toured the detention center, hoping to calm the fears of detainees\u2019 relatives who were waiting outside.<\/p>\n He exited to chaos, he said.<\/p>\n \u201cThere was this very real palpable feeling that emerged in my mind that someone could die,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Arms outstretched, he stood between demonstrators and a truck loaded with federal agents, concerned that a protester might try to make contact with one of the men clinging to the exterior of the armored vehicle.<\/p>\n \u201cRenee Good and Alex Pretti died for less,\u201d he said of the two people killed by federal immigration agents in Minneapolis<\/a>.<\/p>\n Mr. Kim, a Democrat, wound up in a mist of pepper spray and exploding pepper balls.<\/p>\n In the days that followed, the communication between the Sherrill administration and the state\u2019s Democratic congressional delegation and their top staff members intensified. They began sharing information and coordinating oversight visits in text messages and during videoconference calls, some of which were arranged with less than five minutes\u2019 notice, according to two congressional aides based in Washington. One of the staff members, who has more than 20 years of experience on Capitol Hill, said that not since the coronavirus pandemic and Hurricane Sandy had there been this level of coordination.<\/p>\n Four days after Memorial Day, Mr. Trump\u2019s border czar, Tom Homan, traveled to City Hall in Newark to meet with Mr. Baraka. \u201cHe wanted to work this out peacefully,\u201d Mr. Baraka said in an email about the 10 a.m. sit-down.<\/p>\n The mayor said Mr. Homan told him that federal officials were prepared to deploy 31 tactical police units on the streets near Delaney Hall. State officials said they had been similarly warned of a potential influx of federal agents.<\/p>\n \u201cThey were preparing for the surge that evening,\u201d Ms. Sherrill said. \u201cAnd so we felt like we had a decision to make at that point.\u201d<\/p>\n Ms. Sherrill held a news conference<\/a> at 3 p.m. that day, May 29, at a state police command center in Ewing, N.J. The state police, she announced, were creating spaces for people to peacefully protest but also establishing vehicle checkpoints and assuming command-and-control near Delaney Hall.<\/p>\n After warnings to protesters, troopers moved in on horseback and on foot soon after 9:30 p.m., according to the state police. Those who did not move were arrested.<\/p>\n \u201cHorses? And flash bangs? And tear gas on unarmed protesters?\u201d said Nedia Morsy, of Make the Road New Jersey, an immigrant rights organization whose members have demonstrated near Delaney for more than a year. \u201cIf state police are going to use the same tactics that ICE agents use, they aren\u2019t any different.\u201d<\/p>\n Protesters like Alexandra Smith, 23, from Passaic County, N.J., have expressed deep frustration with Ms. Sherrill\u2019s response and efforts by the governor and Mr. Baraka to characterize the protesters as out-of-state provocateurs<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cShe says that we are violent and that out-of-state protesters are agitating the people,\u201d Ms. Smith said on Wednesday. \u201cBut time and time again, it\u2019s been police officers and ICE agents that have escalated the situation.\u201d<\/p>\n On Saturday, Mr. Mullin said in an email that demonstrators would \u201cnot slow us down and ICE operations remain undeterred.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAssaulting and obstructing ICE law enforcement is a crime and felony,\u201d he said. \u201cAnyone who assaults law enforcement will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.\u201d<\/p>\n Last Sunday, after a fire was set on a roadway outside Delaney Hall, Mr. Baraka implemented a 9 p.m. curfew on nearby streets.<\/p>\n Earlier that day, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Newark had held a prayer service<\/a> near Delaney Hall led by Cardinal Joseph W. Tobin.<\/p>\n Cardinal Tobin said the governor had contacted him several times to discuss the situation at Delaney Hall.<\/p>\n \u201cThe governor has taken a very principled stance,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was not simply to maintain safety, but it also was not to give ICE an excuse to intensify their presence and become even more violent, as they have been in other parts of the country.\u201d<\/p>\n The goal of the prayer service, he said, was de-escalation of the crisis.<\/p>\n \u201cI quoted Nietzsche in some of my remarks, who said, \u2018If you want to do battle with monsters, ensure that you don\u2019t become one,\u2019\u201d Cardinal Tobin said.<\/p>\n Sixty-one people were arrested that Sunday night.<\/p>\n The next day, the state police transferred control of the scene to the Newark Police Department, as planned. The mayor has since lifted the curfew and said that Newark police officers would scale back their presence near the detention center.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is not the responsibility of the Newark Police Division to secure a private facility,\u201d Mr. Baraka said Thursday in a statement<\/a>.<\/p>\n Immigrant rights activists point to glimmers of progress over the past two weeks. Immigration authorities have released roughly 30 people from Delaney Hall during that time, including an 18-year-old high school student<\/a>, two pregnant women and people in wheelchairs, according to Amy Torres, executive director of the New Jersey Alliance for Immigrant Justice.<\/p>\n Family visitations that were suspended restarted last week.<\/p>\n Ms. Sherrill sued<\/a> the private company that runs the facility, GEO Group, after state health officials were denied full access<\/a> to the building. She also announced that lawmakers had agreed to add $12 million<\/a> to a legal assistance fund for migrants who are fighting deportation or detention, more than doubling the state\u2019s financial commitment to the program.<\/p>\n On Tuesday night, she met privately with relatives of detainees in Jersey City for more than two hours.<\/p>\n \u201cShe sat down person to person,\u201d said the Rev. Alex Gaitan, a Claretian missionary, who for 10 months has visited Delaney each weekend, celebrating Mass, leading prayer meetings and offering blessings. He translated the conversations from Spanish as needed for the governor. \u201cShe was taking notes of every single thing.\u201d<\/p>\n Mark Bonamo contributed reporting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mikie Sherrill was just five months into her job as governor of New Jersey when long-simmering unease over…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":37796,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4],"tags":[20852,19614,19613,14041,2127,6238,15784,12782,21856,13957,8,15785,13127,12781,13128,12254,13126,21974,20851,19617,1131,20035,9,14849,10867,14042,19615,13022,19616,21972,15786,21973,7,1071,11259],"class_list":["post-37795","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-top-stories","tag-andy-1982","tag-baraka","tag-delaney-hall-newark","tag-demonstrations","tag-deportation","tag-donald-j","tag-federal-actions-in-us-cities","tag-federal-state-relations-us","tag-geo-group-inc","tag-governors-us","tag-headlines","tag-homan","tag-homeland-security-department","tag-illegal-immigration","tag-immigration-and-customs-enforcement-us","tag-immigration-and-emigration","tag-immigration-detention","tag-joseph-w-1952","tag-kim","tag-mikie","tag-new-jersey","tag-newark-nj","tag-news","tag-nj","tag-politics-and-government","tag-protests-and-riots","tag-ras","tag-roman-catholic-church","tag-sherrill","tag-tear-gas","tag-thomas-d","tag-tobin","tag-top-stories","tag-trump","tag-united-states-politics-and-government"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37795","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37795"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37795\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37796"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37795"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37795"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37795"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}