Advocates say temperatures became unbearable inside one housing unit as the region’s heat wave intensified.

Detainees at Newark’s Delaney Hall have told activists that the air conditioning has failed in part of the controversial immigrant detention center, leaving some people sleeping naked and struggling to breathe as a scorching heat wave descends on the region.

Sally Pillay, an advocate with Eyes on ICE who regularly speaks to detainees and their families, told The Jersey Vindicator Thursday afternoon that some of the roughly 150 detainees housed in Unit 4 began calling their families early July 2 to complain that they couldn’t breathe or sleep because of the high temperatures.

It’s not the first time this has happened. Pillay said the cooling system had been on the fritz all week before finally failing sometime Wednesday.

But conditions have gotten far more dangerous as air temperatures soared past 100 degrees.

“There’s no ventilation or circulation,” she said of the unit. “It’s extremely hot, and it’s humid … it’s unbearable. They’re sleeping with no clothes on, and they feel fatigued.”

Activists said they reached out to the city of Newark but did not hear back.

A spokesperson for GEO Group, the private prison firm that runs the 1,000-bed facility on Doremus Avenue, did not respond to requests for comment Thursday.

But a spokesperson for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement told The Jersey Vindicator in an email Thursday evening, July 2, that the agency has added portable air conditioning units and access to ice water while it oversees repairs. Activists disputed the claims Thursday night and said that AC units and ice water have not been provided yet.

“The rapid response to this incident demonstrates ICE’s commitment to uphold the highest detention standards, following all applicable health and safety guidelines,” the spokesperson wrote.

Meanwhile, members of New Jersey’s congressional delegation have also gotten involved.

In a social media post, U.S. Rep. Rob Menendez, a Union County Democrat who has visited Delaney Hall many times, wrote that his office will “continue to press ICE to ensure that this matter is addressed with the urgency required during this extreme heat wave and will do so until air conditioning is restored.”

Pillay said the situation has been worsened by poor drinking water, which detainees have long said tastes metallic and “off.” It seems to have gotten even worse lately, she added.

“Apparently, it’s discolored, yellow, and dirty, like it’s not being filtered,” she said. “And it tastes very bad.”

That means detainees enduring misery-inducing heat must also choke down water they otherwise wouldn’t drink.

Kathy O’Leary, the coordinator of Pax Christi New Jersey, said the imposing fortress near the mouth of Newark Bay has had HVAC issues almost since it opened in May 2025.

Several dorms remained frigid over the winter, she said, but the heat blasted through another unit to the point where “everybody was roasting.”

But the summer heat has taken it to another level.

“This is not a new thing,” Pillay added. “Definitely not.”

The air conditioning failure is another in a long list of complaints voiced by detainees, their families, and immigration activists about Delaney Hall, which they say forces undocumented immigrants swept up in the Trump administration’s immigration raids to live in squalor.

About 300 detainees launched a hunger and labor strike in May to draw attention to their plight and convince Gov. Mikie Sherrill to meet with them. The strike drew national attention, and protesters flocked to the area for weeks of demonstrations that often turned violent.

When asked why she believes GEO Group didn’t fix the air conditioning earlier, Pillay said bluntly that it’s a for-profit entity that “always wants to cut corners.”

“They wait for an issue to get so big that we have to complain,” she said. “They want to house people in this facility, but they cannot fix the infrastructure. We have seen so many issues in this facility.”

“It’s very sad, it’s shocking, and it’s appalling that this is the way we’re treating human beings,” she continued. “And GEO, which is making millions and millions of dollars, doesn’t care about the human beings being warehoused in this facility.”

The risks and costs of being a data broker in the United States just went up — again. On 30 June 2026, Gov. Mikie Sherrill, D-N.J., signed A 5328 into law, making New Jersey the seventh state to enact a data broker law, and the second this year, following Connecticut. The bill was introduced and signed over the course of a few days, as New Jersey’s Legislature sprinted toward an end-of-fiscal-year budget deadline.

This is not a simple copy-paste of any other state. The most notable divergence is its breadth. It creates requirements not only for data brokers, but also for data collectors, entities that have a direct relationship with individuals but sell their personal data to data brokers.

Its greatest impact comes from the creation of a tiered — and costly — structure for annual registration fees, requiring the largest data brokers and data collectors to pay a USD1.5 million annual registration fee. Although the minimum fee, payable for selling the personal data of any number of New Jersey consumers, is not the highest in the country, the second tier is higher than any other state, and kicks in at 100,000 consumers. Data brokers and data collectors also face significant fines for failing to register or update their registration information.

Further, the law prohibits the sale of sensitive data both through the data broker provisions and by amending New Jersey’s consumer data privacy law. Violations of that prohibition carry a severe USD50,000-per-record fine.

The law takes effect immediately, except for the requirement that the New Jersey Division of Consumer Affairs create a registry, which takes effect 270 days after enactment, on 27 March 2027.

Data brokers and their suppliers

The daredevils who climbed to the top of Empire State Building’s spire on July 1 are from New Jersey.

Angela Nikolau, 33, and Ivan Beerkus, 32, who originate from Russia, are residents of East Orange in Essex County, according to the NYPD.

The couple climbed the antenna spire atop New York City’s most famous building to hang a large banner that read: “When the power of love beats the love of power the world knows peace.”

Beerkus then appeared to propose to Nikolau atop the skyscraper some 1,454 feet about the Manhattan streets below.

Nikolau, wearing her trademark Catwoman-style headgear, then was seen admiring her hand and taking photographs of her ring to share on Instagram. The couple and their adventures in what has become known as “rooftopping” were the subject of a 2024 documentary called “Skywalkers: A Love Story.”

When the couple climbed down, they were arrested and charged with burglary, reckless endangerment, criminal mischief, violation of local law, possession of burglar’s tools, criminal tampering, criminal trespass and disorderly conduct, according to the NYPD.

Nikolau’s acrobatics run in the family, and her father, the Russian circus artist Dmitriy Nikolau, was aware of his daughter’s climb when answering a call from a reporter.

“I think it is normal to climb up a roof in any country, including the United States, according to any constitution,” he said. Asked if he was worried about his daughter, he said: “Why should I be worried? I climb up roofs myself.”

Reuters contributed to this article.