U.S. Rep. Lamonica McIver returned to the Delaney Hall immigrant detention center in Newark on Tuesday for the first time since May, when an encounter with a federal agent resulted in criminal charges against her that are still pending in federal court.
McIver’s return was for a congressional oversight visit two days before Christmas and 11 days after detainee Jean Wilson Brutus died on Dec. 12, the day he arrived at Delaney Hall.
“It is very traumatic to be back here, personally,” McIver, D-10th Dist., told news crews during a press conference, when she offered her condolences to Brutus’ family. “But I had to put aside my traumatic experience here, and come back here and represent for them what is happening inside of this awful detention center.”
In a Dec. 18 announcement of Brutus’ death, ICE said the 41-year-old Haitian immigrant had died from what the agency said were “suspected natural causes.”
ICE said its officers arrested Brutus on Dec. 11 on criminal mischief charges. Local police had arrested him four times previously and released him each time. He initially entered the United States illegally through the port of Hidalgo, Texas, on June 20, 2023.
The case is being investigated by the Office of Professional Responsibility, or OPR, a kind of internal affairs bureau within the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, ICE’s parent agency, said U.S. Rep. Rob Menendez, D-8th District, who was with McIver on Tuesday and during the May 9 oversight visit.
They are among members of Congress demanding information on Brutus.
The charges against McIver stem from her May 9 attempt to shield Newark Mayor Ras J. Baraka from arrest by a federal officer just outside Delaney Hall’s barbed wire security fence. Charges of assaulting and impeding a federal officer are pending against her in U.S. District Court.
The two were joined Tuesday by another House Democrat, U.S. Rep. Yvette Clarke of New York, who chairs the Congressional Black Caucus.
Menendez said the State of New Jersey would conduct an autopsy on Brutus, though the congressman did not know how long the OPR investigation would last or when the autopsy would be performed.
The City of Newark’s top lawyer, Corporation Counsel Kenyatta Stewart, offered his condolences to the Brutus family on behalf of Baraka, who was traveling on Tuesday.
Stewart said the city expected a thorough investigation into the death, and criticized ICE for being less transparent about the people it held than officials of the Essex County Detention Center are about the criminal suspects they hold in the big jail right next door.
McIver said she was traumatized by the events surrounding Baraka’s arrest, but that whatever she suffered was nothing compared to what the families of Brutus and other detainees were going through.
McIver and her House colleagues said detainees complained of dehumanizing conditions including bad food served at odd and restricted hours; overcrowding and inadequate medical attention, a particular concern in the wake of Brutus’ death.
The House members noted that Brutus was one of four ICE detainees to die in a four-day period this month.
Spokespeople for ICE did not immediately respond to requests for comment Tuesday afternoon.
Several members of the Brutus family appeared outside Delaney Hall on Tuesday, though they declined to talk to reporters.
One of their lawyers, Oliver Barry, said the family had received little information on what had happened. But he said the family was heartened by the concern they saw outside Delaney Hall on Tuesday, when immigrant rights advocates from Pax Christi, Eyes on Ice and other groups were demonstrating.
“They are glad that there are so many people in the community who are taking this matter very seriously and coming out to show respect for their loved one who is no longer with us,” Barry said of the family.
His co-counsel is Joseph Champagne Jr., a former mayor of South Toms River who in 2010 became one of New Jersey’s first Haitian-American elected officials.
The House members said several detainees told of being taken into custody by ICE after emerging from asylum hearings or otherwise complying with the legal immigration process. They also said others recounted being arrested at their jobs or other habitual locations despite having visas or working papers.
“These people are not criminals,” said Menendez, a vice chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. “These people have been part of our community for decades.”
Menendez put the number of Delaney Hall detainees at 952, close to the 1,000 capacity under a 15-year, $1 billion contract between its private owner and operator, the GEO Group of Boca Raton, Florida, and ICE.
GEO did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Tuesday.
The House members said some detainees told them they had been waiting for months even after agreeing to be deported.
Clarke said the mass incarceration of immigrants was motivated by greed, and likened the repeated transfer of prisoners to human trafficking.
“I was searching my heart as I drove from Brooklyn, and I thought about the fact that this is the holiday season,” Clarke said. “They were showing up for their asylum hearings. They had viable cases within immigration courts, only to be kidnapped and trafficked across the country.”
And it’s all at taxpayers expense, Clarke said.
“Many of them have been circulating throughout the private prison system around this country, and brought back,” Clarke said of detainees. “How could that be?”
