(Headline USA) Four detainees broke through a wall and escaped from a federal immigration detention center in Newark, New Jersey, amid reports of disorder breaking out there, according to Sen. Andy Kim and the Department of Homeland Security.
Kim, a Democrat from New Jersey, spoke Friday outside the Delaney Hall detention center. He said he was told detainees managed to break through an interior wall that led to an exterior one and from there were able to escape to a parking lot.
🚨REWARD🚨
DHS and the FBI are providing a $10,000 reward for information that leads to the capture of four illegal aliens who fled from the Delaney Hall Detention Facility in New Jersey.
If you'd like to report a tip, call (866) 347-2423. pic.twitter.com/wvVdnQ81Zl
— Breanna Morello (@BreannaMorello) June 13, 2025
More “law enforcement partners” have been brought in to find the detainees missing from Delaney Hall, according to an emailed statement attributed to a senior DHS official whom the department did not identify. The statement also didn’t specify which law enforcement agencies are involved, and authorities haven’t released the names of the escapees.
DHS identified the four escapees as two Colombian men who were arrested on burglary and other counts and two Hondurans, Franklin Norberto Bautista-Reyes and Joel Enrique Sandoval-Lopez, who were arrested on aggravated assault and other charges.
Newark’s mayor cited reports of a possible uprising and escape after disorder broke out at the facility Thursday night and protesters outside the center locked arms and pushed against barricades as vehicles passed through gates. Much is still unclear about what unfolded there.
GEO Group, the company that owns and operates the facility for the federal government, said in a statement that there’s “no widespread unrest” at the facility.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement opened a 1,000-bed facility there this year under a 15-year, $1 billion contract as part of President Donald Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigration.
Protest at the detention center
Photos and video from outside the facility Thursday showed protesters pushing against the gates amid word that detainees inside were upset about delayed meals.
Amy Torres, executive director of New Jersey Alliance for Immigrant Justice, said some officers pepper sprayed, tackled and dragged protesters away from the facility. She said some protesters had minor injuries, but no one was hit by the vehicles.
NOW: Anti-ICE protesters PUSHED BACK outside Delaney Hall Detention Center in Newark.
Protests blocked cars from entering or leaving after nine detainees escaped the facility.
About 50 inmates at Delaney Hall lpushed down the wall of a dormitory room when meals were hours late,… pic.twitter.com/diVWX1y9P5
— Oliya Scootercaster 🛴 (@ScooterCasterNY) June 13, 2025
Mustafa Cetin, an attorney for a client who’s been detained in Delaney Hall for about two weeks, told The Associated Press that things turned violent late Thursday afternoon after detainees’ meals arrived hours late.
“Apparently the guards lost control of them,” Cetin said. “And they started to, you know, create a disturbance. They came back up to the third floor, where my client is. Basically, they blocked off cameras, security cameras, and some of them made their way into a housing unit with a very thin, shallow wall, and they knocked it out.”
Kim said he had heard about problems related to food and an odor in the water. Kim also said it seems as if there will be “major movements” of detainees out of the facility over the next 24 hours. He said he was seeking “full confirmation” about that.
A message seeking comment was left with the Homeland Security Department, which oversees Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Attorneys with clients inside Delaney Hall have had calls canceled and weren’t able to get inside the facility Friday, according to Araceti Argueta, a spokesperson for the American Friends Service Committee, a nonprofit that represents immigrants.
Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press
