Delaney Hall in Newark has been at the epicenter of controversy in New Jersey, as protesters have clashed with Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials and state police outside the facility and demonstrated against what detainees on a hunger strike have called the “terrible and inhumane” conditions inside the center. Sherrill said she was denied access to the facility last Monday, along with state health officials, though the New Jersey Department of Health inspected a “limited part” of the facility later that week, according to the governor.The lawsuit filed Tuesday takes aim at The GEO Group, Inc., the operator in charge of the federal immigration detention center, saying the operator “refused to permit Plaintiff [Dr. Raynard E. Washington, the Commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Health] to inspect any area of Delaney Hall other than the food service areas.”
“If the GEO Group — with a $1 billion government contract — has nothing to hide and the conditions inside Delaney Hall are as safe and as sanitary as this private corporation and the Trump Administration claim, then there is no legitimate reason why my health inspectors are being kept from full access throughout the building,” Sherrill said in a Tuesday statement.
