NEWARK, N.J. (AP) — New Jersey state police set up designated protest zones and vehicle checkpoints outside an immigration detention center in Newark on Friday, relieving federal immigration enforcement agents who have been clashing with protesters for days. Gov. Mikie Sherrill said she sent in state police to bring order outside Delaney Hall as the demonstrations have intensified, with violence and arrests increasing as night falls.“It has grown unsafe, and that’s completely unacceptable,” the Democratic governor said at a news conference announcing the new measures. “We need to take this opportunity to lower the temperature.”As police erected protest barriers, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents who had formed an line in front of protesters moved inside the building’s perimeter fence.New Jersey State Police Lt. Col. David Sierotowicz said ICE officers agreed to stand down with state police assuming responsibility.
Demonstrators had mixed reactions. Some staged a sit-in and refused to move into one of the new protest areas police set up using metal barriers and concrete blocks.
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Rachel Cohen worried that demonstrators exercising their First Amendment rights were being silenced. “It is not helpful to quell protest for the sake of a false peace,” she said. “There is no peace while we are torturing our neighbors on government dime inside this facility.”
