Keeping Vigil at an ICE Detention Facility in New Jersey

Delaney Hall Detention Facility looms over a truck route near the Port of Newark, adjacent to the Essex County jail and across the street from a heating oil depot and garbage incineration operation. It is not a place one would expect to find the light of spiritual uplift or political resistance.

And yet Delaney Hall, a privately operated detention center where Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents house people they have arrested in northern New Jersey, is the site of a sustained and faith-fueled vigil for local activists expressing their opposition to the bigoted anti-immigrant tactics of the Trump administration.

On most Sunday mornings, progressive Christian clergy or laypeople lead a prayer service near the hall’s entrance. Family and friends of detainees on their way in or out of the facility occasionally join in the prayer and singing. Earlier this month, clergy from Temple Ner Tamid in Bloomfield, NJ, led the service, which was attended by about 30 people—members of the synagogue as well as regular protesters with such groups as Pax Christi, New Jersey Peace Action and Eyes on ICE.

“We are extraordinarily heartbroken by the ongoing injustice,” Ner Tamid’s Cantor Meredith Greenberg told the gathering. “We are facing a collective insanity…Let this be about restoring a little hope.”

Operated by the private prison company GEO Group, Delaney Hall has drawn criticism since it reopened in early 2025 as a 1,000-bed ICE detention facility, one of the largest on the East Coast. Local officials tried unsuccessfully to stop it from opening based on disputed building permits and allegations of inhumane conditions. A confrontation between Democratic politicians and Delaney guards in May 2025 led to the Department of Justice charging U.S. Representative LaMonica McIver, whose Newark district includes the facility, with three counts of impeding federal officials—felony allegations that are still pending and that the congresswoman vehemently denies. 

In December 2025, ICE announced that Jean Wilson Brutus, a 41-year-old Haitian detainee, had died while in custody at Delaney Hall. The government described the cause of death as “a medical emergency.” Brutus was one of 32 people who died in ICE custody in 2025—the deadliest year in more than two decades for immigrants in detention.  

On March 8, beneath a gray late-winter sky, Cantor Greenberg led the impromptu interfaith congregation in a musical rendition of the prayer Hineini (“Here I Am”): 

“When I cannot hear God’s voice, I will listen for it still 

I will be still

Hineini”

Greenberg’s repertoire, which she accompanied on guitar, was characteristically eclectic and engaging, ranging from “Sanctuary” by Randy Scruggs and John W. Thompson (“Lord, prepare me/To be a sanctuary/Pure and holy/Tried and true…”) to “We Shall Not Be Moved” by Alfred Henry Ackley, the latter in both English and Spanish (“We shall not, we shall not be moved/No, no, no, nos moverán…”).

Sister Susan Francois, a regular participant in, and social media chronicler of, activism at Delaney Hall, said she was impressed by the teaching offered by Assistant Rabbi James Feder of Ner Tamid: The Midrash recounts that when Aaron told the Israelite men to gather their wives’ jewelry for the construction of the Golden Calf, a false idol, half of the Israelites, including many of the women, refused. 

“They stood up,” Feder said in his sermon. “They resisted. It cannot have been easy, but they did it.”     

He elaborated: “Resistance is always possible. When our society and our leaders and even our most intimate loved ones are doing something that we know to be wrong, we can resist. We must.”

“That meant a lot to me,” Francois said.

Resistance to Trump’s xenophobic anti-immigrant campaign has become a source of common ground within some Jewish families. Hilary Rosenthal Taylor, a Ner Tamid congregant, attended the March 8 prayer service with her adult daughter, Lila Taylor. She and Lila are also regular participants in Montclair Sundays, a more broadly focused demonstration which last weekend marked its 55th consecutive gathering on the corner of Bloomfield Avenue and Church Street in Montclair, NJ. 

“I just feel the need to do something, and if it helps to raise any kind of spiritual energy or just love to transmit to all these people, the family [of detainees], it’s a little bit, it’s something,” Hilary Rosenthal Taylor said. 

“There’s an obligation of social justice within Judaism,” added Lila.

Julie Cohen, a documentary filmmaker, and Paul M. Barrett, a retired journalist, are married activists who live in northern New Jersey. Julie is co-founder of Montclair Sundays, a weekly protest group, in which Paul is an enthusiastic participant.

(Top image courtesy of Paul Barrett)