McIver Attends Hearing Rife with Republican Lies About Delaney Hall
| WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today, Congresswoman LaMonica McIver (NJ-10) attended a hearing held by the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Oversight, titled "False Narratives Surrounding Conditions at the Delaney Hall ICE Detention Center." The hearing was chaired by Republican extremist Rep. Jeff Van Drew (NJ-02). Delaney Hall sits in the heart of McIver’s district and is the center of the federal case the Trump Department of Justice (DOJ) is bringing against her for conducting legally authorized oversight.
Claims from Van Drew and Republicans that Democrats like McIver are pushing a false narrative about the facility completely ignore firsthand accounts from lawmakers, advocates, and detainees who describe unsafe conditions, rotten food, and brutality from guards at the facility. “If Jeff Van Drew’s lips are moving, he’s lying. Delaney Hall is in my district; I have visited many times, often in response to reports of neglect and abuse. What I have seen there is cruel and inhumane. It’s disgusting that Van Drew was trying to paper over the facts in his hearing,” said McIver. “Everything about Delaney makes it obvious: for the Trump administration, the cruelty is the point. They are holding high schoolers, pregnant women, and sick folks in conditions so brutal that even detainees with legal status elect to self-deport simply to escape the suffering. The lies in today’s hearing from Republicans with no firsthand knowledge were as outrageous as they were offensive—just a clown car of Trump loyalists putting political allegiance over the lives and dignity of human beings." The first ICE detention center opened in Trump’s second term, Delaney Hall’s corporate owners lacked municipal permits and refused inspections. In December of 2025, a detainee died in ICE custody after being briefly held at Delaney, calling into question the conditions in the facility. In recent months, detainees went on a hunger strike to protest conditions they described as torture. Denial of basic medical care, unsafe drinking water, violence, rotten food, and indefinite detention without due process were all reported by detainees at Delaney Hall. Earlier this year, McIver was able to facilitate the release of a high schooler who was unjustly detained at the facility. Consistently a flashpoint for controversy, Delaney Hall is at the center of the Trump administration’s baseless case against McIver, stemming from an oversight visit she conducted in May, 2025. The oversight visit, which should have been routine, was escalated by ICE, leading to the Trump administration bringing federal charges against McIver. She now faces up to 17 years in prison. The case is ongoing.
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