Today, following an inspection of the Delaney Hall ICE facility in Newark, New Jersey with Reps. LaMonica McIver and Robert Menendez, Jr., Congresswoman Bonnie Watson Coleman released the following statement: 

“At around 1pm today, my colleagues Rep. Lamonica McIver and Rep. Rob Menendez, Jr. and I arrived at the Delaney Hall ICE detention facility in Newark to exercise our oversight authority as Members of Congress.

“Contrary to a press statement put out by DHS we did not “storm” the detention center. The author of that press release was so unfamiliar with the facts on the ground that they didn’t even correctly count the number of Representatives present. We were exercising our legal oversight function as we have done at the Elizabeth Detention Center without incident.

“Reopening Delaney Hall won’t make us safer and it won’t create an immigration system that is fair and secure for all families.

“Private Prison companies like GEO Group create a perverse incentive to increase incarceration to increase corporate profits. It’s no accident that GEO Group was the first corporation to max out donations to Trump’s Super PAC, to the tune of $500,000 dollars. And they’re being rewarded with huge contracts to imprison immigrants like we’re seeing here at Delaney.

“New Jerseyans don’t want more private prisons just to increase shareholder income at the expense of taxpayers. They want a fair and secure immigration system that reflects our values and respects our Constitution.”