Protests, Hunger Strike Continue at New Jersey ICE Detention Center Protesters and police are now facing off outside Delaney Hall almost as intensely as detainees and guards inside, turning a local hunger strike over conditions into a proxy battle over immigration, extremism, and “law and order.”

Conservative-leaning coverage centers on public safety and political extremism. The Washington Times frames Gov. Mikie Sherrill’s move as an effort to “bring order” by sending state police to create a designated “protest zone” outside the Newark facility after “violent demonstrations and arrests” in recent days. The Washington Examiner similarly describes “increasing violence, arrests, and pepper spray at Delaney Hall,” quoting Sherrill saying the situation “has grown unsafe, and that is completely unacceptable.” Another Examiner report highlights clashes as state police cleared the area to escort ICE employees, stressing that while most protesters complied, a “limited number” deployed fireworks and threw gas canisters at officers, prompting a temporary shutdown of the area.

Fox News pushes the extremism angle further, characterizing the scene as a clash of “far-left communist-socialist activists” and a “far-right group,” with chants of “Stop ICE Gestapo! Communist revolution!” and literature proclaiming “LONG LIVE COMMUNISM!” DHS is given ample space to deny detainees’ claims of “physical and psychological torture,” pointing to menus with “chicken fajitas and Salisbury steak” as proof of adequate care.

The liberal account from the Guardian inverts the emphasis. It foregrounds detainees’ nine-day hunger and labor strike “demanding improved conditions and medical care,” and reports that strikers have faced retaliation, including pepper-spraying by guards. Where conservative stories cast state police as a bulwark against chaos, the Guardian notes officers fired “teargas canisters and pepper ball pellets at anti-ICE protesters” and arrived on horseback to push them back.

Both sides agree Sherrill created a fenced “protected speech” or “protest” zone and that DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin publicly praised her cooperation. But conservatives frame this as “a win for law and order,” while liberals depict it as containing dissent around an opaque private detention regime whose core allegations—torture versus steak dinners—remain fundamentally unverified in the public record.