The New York City lawmaker who describes himself as the first “formerly undocumented immigrant” member of Congress was defiant this week when he arrived at Newark’s Delaney Hall detention center waving a court order and demanding entry.
Rep. Adriano Espaillat, a Washington Heights Democrat, was one of three Manhattan lawmakers who converged on the center Wednesday to demand the Trump administration shut it down and, in the interim, treat those held inside more humanely.
“Shut it down,” Espaillat boomed, after spending some time inside Delaney Hall purportedly visiting inmates.
When he arrived, Espaillat and his aides approached the entrance gate, and the lawmaker pulled out a document and waved it, telling guards who he was and that a judge had given him clearance to enter.
“I have a court order here that allows me to come in. I will go in because the Constitution protects me,” Espaillat hollered to the people at the gate.
Espaillat said he is also one of 12 plaintiffs in a lawsuit seeking to force DHS to allow lawmakers into any detention center, including privately operated facilities such as Delaney Hall, at any time without notice.
The order Espaillat waved appeared to have District of Columbia federal court letterhead and included a line stating the case appeared before two Obama appointees, Cornelia Pillard and Robert Wilkins, and one Trump appointee, Neomi Rao, who replaced Justice Brett Kavanaugh on the appellate bench. The lead plaintiff listed was Rep. Joe Neguse, D-Colo.
“I’m going to be introducing legislation that would allow Governor Mikie Sherrill and any governor or any state to be able to come and inspect a federal detention center like this. So I plan to do that very soon,” Espaillat said.
He said any public official should be allowed into Delaney Hall to inspect conditions and claimed the majority of those being held are “working people” before briefly switching to Spanish.
“They are not criminals they… have been ripped from their families and thrown in here,” he said.
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Soon after he departed, Reps. Jerrold Nadler and Daniel Goldman arrived together, and spent close to two hours inside.
Nadler began speaking out against conditions at the center before he even reached the microphone, alleging the “food is very sparse” and that inmates eat only at 4 a.m., noon and 4 p.m.
“And very often, they eat maggots in the food,” he said, making an allegation denied by those on the other side.
He also claimed medical services were limited and that inmates were waiting a long time for treatment, an allegation protesters also shouted at ICE agents later in the day.
However, ambulances from a local Newark hospital regularly arrived throughout the day Wednesday and Thursday, appearing to contradict claims that detainees were not receiving treatment.
“We know that they’re not getting any kind of justice because we know that the president is — these cases go before immigration judges. And we know the president is firing all immigration judges who grant asylum,” Nadler claimed.
He then yielded to Goldman, who spoke along similar lines but, unlike Nadler, was repeatedly heckled by some in the crowd.
A protester could be heard calling out something about the Israel-Gaza conflict — as both Goldman and Nadler are Jewish — while another man whom a protester verbally accused of being a “Proud Boy” began heckling Goldman about federal statutes that govern the ability to enforce immigration law.
“I want to thank the advocates who are here every day fighting for the freedom of those who are unjustly and illegally being held in there. My colleague, Mr. Nadler, spoke a bit about the conditions. And they, I think, are easiest to be summed up as: this is criminal jail and none of these people are criminals,” Goldman said.
He said he met with a man who had been in the U.S. for 23 years and has American-citizen children — but was detained by DHS when he showed up for a “green card interview.”
“I don’t care what your view is on immigration policy or how you think that the policy should be. The bottom line is if you are human, if you’re American, you cannot support what is going on here,” he said.
Goldman, an attorney who famously represented then-Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., during the Trump impeachment investigation, said the inmates have “almost no [legal] representation.”
He suggested he repeatedly asked inmates if they had criminal records and routinely was told no.
In turn, he used that recollection to slam the White House and a top Trump confidant who has been active in advising on immigration-related policy.
“When Donald Trump and Stephen Miller say that this ICE deportation dragnet is going after the worst of the worst, they are lying,” he said.
Goldman accused Trump and Miller of intentionally creating dire conditions, such as those alleged inside Delaney Hall, that would lead inmates to opt for “voluntary departure” and self-deportation.
As Goldman continued speaking, a man standing next to him began calling out and interrupting him, asking him to condemn protester violence.
Goldman appeared unfazed but occasionally turned to admonish the man before he was confronted by another member of the congressmen’s security detail.
The visit by the Manhattan lawmakers was less raucous, however, than another public official’s visit the previous day, when Sen. Andy Kim, D-N.J., was pepper-sprayed by ICE after allegedly interceding between the two factions on the street in an apparent attempt to calm tensions.
Things did not cool off after the congressmen left, however, as pepper spray was again deployed Wednesday and Thursday evening while the at-times-heated demonstrations showed no signs of subsiding.
