Local and state police moved in on anti-ICE demonstrators outside Delaney Hall in Newark, New Jersey, on Sunday night, arresting at least 20 protesters who defied a newly imposed curfew around the immigration detention center. Officers in riot gear fired two rounds of tear gas before corralling the remaining crowd and cuffing those who refused to leave.
The Department of Homeland Security wasted no time posting footage of the arrests and making its position clear. "If you riot, you will face the consequences. Law and order prevails," DHS wrote on X, adding: "ZERO tolerance for rioters."
The confrontation marked the latest escalation in weeks of protests that have surrounded the Doremus Avenue facility since at least May 22. Newark Mayor Ras Baraka instituted a 9 p.m.-to-6 a.m. curfew around Delaney Hall, in effect until further notice, after what the New York Post described as clashes between anti-ICE protesters and agents that had continued for a third straight week.
Police closed off a stretch of Doremus Avenue roughly a quarter-mile around Delaney Hall to prevent crowds from reaching the detention facility. After officers announced the 9 p.m. curfew, the crowd thinned to roughly 100 people.
Those who stayed did not leave quietly. Protesters chanted "Give peace a chance" and "No Trump, no KKK, no fascist USA" as police in riot gear advanced. Officers shouted "Move in!" and fired two rounds of tear gas toward the demonstrators.
After the gas scattered much of the remaining group, roughly 50 protesters and members of the press found themselves corralled into a tight circle. Officers allowed those with press passes to file out. Then they cuffed the roughly 20 to 25 people who remained.
Several of those arrests took place in front of a wall spray-painted with "KILL ICE" graffiti, a detail that tells you something about the character of these so-called peaceful demonstrations.
Neither the Newark Police Department nor the Essex County Sheriff's Department immediately responded to the Post's inquiries about the arrests. The exact number of people taken into custody was not confirmed by police as of the Post's reporting. Footage described in the Post's account showed protesters flanked by officers in riot vests and helmets being loaded onto Essex County Sheriff's Department buses.
DHS did not mince words on social media. The agency's official X account posted a clip of a man sitting on the ground being dragged by multiple officers standing in a barricade line. The caption read: "Don't be this guy." The post was dated June 1, 2026.
In a separate post, DHS declared its "ZERO tolerance for rioters" and warned that anyone who riots "will face the consequences." The tone was unmistakable: the federal government views these protests not as exercises in free expression but as disorder requiring a firm response.
That framing will draw howls from the usual quarters. But three weeks of escalating confrontations outside a federal facility, complete with tear gas, graffiti calling for the destruction of a law-enforcement agency, and repeated clashes with agents, make it difficult to characterize the situation as a candlelight vigil that got slightly out of hand.
Mayor Baraka's curfew order stated that individuals who violate the restriction will receive an initial warning but will be removed and face possible legal action if they refuse to comply. The order covers the area around Delaney Hall from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. and remains open-ended.
Baraka, a Democrat, finds himself in an awkward position. He imposed the curfew to restore order, but the protests outside Delaney Hall have been fueled in part by Democratic officials raising concerns about conditions inside the facility. New Jersey Governor Mikie Sherrill, among other top Democratic figures, has raised questions about what she described as inhumane conditions and a lack of visitation hours at the detention center.
The Trump administration has pushed back on those claims, countering that the standard of living at Delaney Hall is higher than that of most U.S. prisons. The specifics of conditions inside the facility remain disputed, with no independent verification cited in the Post's reporting to settle the matter one way or the other.
What is not in dispute is the scene outside. Federal law enforcement continues to confront challenges at sensitive sites across the country, from alleged security threats at military installations to sustained protests aimed at disrupting immigration enforcement operations.
The demonstrations outside Delaney Hall have now stretched past the three-week mark. The Post's reporting traces the disorder to at least May 22, when protesters first gathered in significant numbers around the ICE facility. What followed was a pattern of escalation: larger crowds, confrontations with agents, and ultimately the kind of sustained unrest that forced even a sympathetic local government to impose emergency restrictions.
The charges filed against those arrested Sunday night, if any, have not been disclosed. Whether the curfew holds, and whether it deters future gatherings, remains to be seen. The open questions are significant: Were any officers, protesters, or bystanders injured? What legal authority underpins Baraka's curfew order? And will prosecutors follow through on the promise of consequences, or will the arrested demonstrators walk free within hours?
Those answers matter. A curfew without enforcement is a suggestion. And suggestions have not worked on Doremus Avenue.
There is a broader pattern here that deserves attention. When protesters target federal law-enforcement facilities, whether ICE detention centers, courthouses, or other government buildings, they are not simply expressing disagreement with a policy. They are attempting to physically obstruct the operations of a lawful government agency. The graffiti reading "KILL ICE" is not metaphorical. It reflects a movement that views federal immigration enforcement as illegitimate and treats any means of resistance as justified.
Democratic leaders have spent years encouraging that view. When governors and mayors publicly question the legitimacy of ICE operations, when they declare sanctuary policies that obstruct federal enforcement, and when they frame lawful detention as inherently inhumane, they create the conditions for exactly the kind of sustained disorder that Newark has experienced for three weeks running.
Then, when the disorder becomes untenable, those same leaders impose curfews and call in riot police, the very tools of state authority they spent years criticizing when deployed by the federal government.
Mayor Baraka's curfew is the right call. It should have come sooner. And it should be backed by real legal consequences for those who defy it, not warnings, not wrist-slaps, but the kind of accountability that tells the next group of would-be occupiers that lawlessness outside a federal facility will not be tolerated.
DHS has made its position plain. The question now is whether local leaders will match that resolve, or whether they'll quietly let the arrested protesters go and wait for the next confrontation to force their hand again.
When you spend years telling people that immigration enforcement is oppression, don't act surprised when they show up ready to fight the enforcers.