Curfew to Be Lifted Near NJ’s Delaney Hall ICE Facility Where Protests Have Raged

New Jersey officials said on Tuesday that they planned to lift a curfew imposed during the weekend after violent clashes between demonstrators and the New Jersey State Police outside an immigration detention center in Newark.

Ras Baraka, the city’s mayor, said at a morning news conference that the curfew could be lifted as early as Tuesday after more than a week of escalating tensions between demonstrators and law enforcement authorities outside the Delaney Hall detention center. The restriction was put in place on Sunday after a fire was started on a roadway outside the facility, he said. Some protesters were shoved into traffic, and state police officers used batons on demonstrators, he added.

“We believe that maintaining order and protecting civil rights are not mutually exclusive,” Mr. Baraka, a Democrat, said. “They must go hand in hand.”

“We obviously thought that the interaction between ICE agents, Homeland Security and the state police and residents were troubling,” he added, referring to the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.

The Newark Police Department said that 61 people had been arrested between Sunday and Monday on charges of failure to disperse, curfew violation and resisting arrest. Officials did not identify them and said no other information was available.

Mr. Baraka said that the state officials were handing greater control to the city after the state police failed to cool tensions between the demonstrators and federal immigration enforcement officers. He said that the city planned to remove protest zones that had limited demonstrators’ movements and would lean on street teams largely made up of clergy and community activists to keep the peace.

The shift follows mounting criticism of the decision by Gov. Mikie Sherrill to give control to the state police on Friday in response to the Trump administration’s threat to send in a surge of immigration enforcement officers. Mr. Baraka said that the state police used tactics that only made matters worse as the protests grew during the weekend.

“The state police is a sword,” he said. “If you’re going to use them, you have to expect people to get cut.”

A spokesman for the governor, who is a Democrat, directed a reporter to her statement on Monday evening announcing that Newark would take the lead on public safety operations outside of Delaney Hall. “My focus will remain on securing better conditions for the detainees and their families and once again urge everyone to remain peaceful,” she said in a post on X.

Mr. Baraka lamented that the clashes had taken the focus off health and safety concerns at Delaney Hall, which had prompted the demonstrations. Detainees have been on a hunger strike protesting a lack of adequate food and medical care, he said, citing reports that one woman in custody suffered a miscarriage and that detainees were fed spoiled food.

The private company that operates Delaney Hall, the GEO Group, did not immediately respond on Tuesday to an email seeking comment.

Mr. Baraka said that the protesters had been gathering peacefully for about a year to protect families and detainees and to fight for their civil and constitutional rights. He said that the recent troubles could suggest the presence of outside agitators.

“There are people causing problems, but I can’t tell you if they are protesters or not,” he said. “And I don’t know who these people are who come here to do this. I don’t know how they got here, who planted them here, what their energy is, what they want to do.”

Jennifer Davenport, the New Jersey attorney general, filed a lawsuit against the GEO Group on Tuesday seeking to force it to allow state health inspectors into the facility. According to the lawsuit, the inspectors were granted limited access to Delaney Hall on May 28, but were denied entry to the medical unit, sleeping area and bathing and toilet areas. Ms. Davenport said the restriction violated a state law that empowers the Department of Health to supervise sanitation and hygiene.

Ms. Sherrill said in another post on X, “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.”

Mr. Baraka said that the center was subject to inspection in the same way a nursing home would be, adding that the denial was fuel for the city’s ongoing lawsuit against the GEO Group seeking to close Delaney Hall. He asserted that the facility was operating illegally, because the company did not obtain the local approval that is necessary to change its use from a halfway house for former prisoners to an immigrant detention center.

Baraka’s criticism of the tactics used by the state police troopers at Delaney Hall was echoed by demonstrators the night before. They expressed anger at Ms. Sherrill, who had criticized President Trump and his policies during the 2025 governor’s race. Now, they said they felt that Ms. Sherrill was working in tandem with the Trump administration because the tactics that were used by the state troopers against the demonstrators at Delaney Hall mirrored the approach employed by ICE.

Casey Ward, 30, a hair salon owner who lives in Garfield, N.J., said that she volunteered for Ms. Sherrill during the campaign, even though she had preferred the more progressive politics of Mr. Baraka, who had sought the Democratic nomination for governor. She said that she felt betrayed.

“Sherrill has done exactly what the Trump administration does, which is say, ‘I’m going to say something, or you might have seen a video of it, but you shouldn’t believe your own eyes,’” Ms. Ward said.

“I’m angry with Sherrill,” she added. “But I’m even more angry with myself for voting for her.”

Mark Bonamo and Ana Ley contributed reporting.