By Karen Freifeld
NEWARK, New Jersey, May 30 (Reuters) – New Jersey state police who deployed near an immigrant detention center found that out-of-state agitators escalated tensions during protests, Governor Mikie Sherrill said on Saturday.
At a news conference the day after Sherrill ordered state police to assume control outside the Delaney Hall detention facility in Newark, she said five of six people arrested Friday night were not from New Jersey and said “national extremist groups” became involved in the protests Saturday, adding to tensions in the state’s most populous city.
“You should not be here,” she said of those who came to create chaos. “You are not helping the people detained at Delaney Hall. You’re not helping detainee families and you’re certainly not keeping New Jersey safe.”
State police on Friday set up “protected protest zones” after several days of confrontations between protesters and federal agents outside Delaney, a 1,000-bed facility whose detainees had announced a labor and hunger strike to draw attention to what they called inhumane conditions and to demand their release.
“That’s exactly where our focus needs to be right now, advocating for better conditions for those inside the facility,” Sherrill said. “We can’t let what’s happening outside Delaney Hall take us away from that mission.”
Sherrill said she was “grateful to the vast majority of protesters who have assembled peacefully and raised their voices about Delaney Hall conditions.”
The company Geo Group (GEO.N) operates Delaney for Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin has denied the allegations about the facility and called the involvement of state police a “win for law and order.”
But Sherrill, a Democrat, suggested federal officials had made the situation worse, with ICE using batons on protesters and taking other actions that she described as inappropriate for crowd control. “They have been increasing tensions in a way that’s not helpful to public safety,” she said.
The governor, who has called for the closure of Delaney Hall, said her goal was to ensure peaceful protests and public safety — and avoid a surge of federal agents.
“What we have been working towards now is ensuring that ICE has no pretextual reason whatsoever to exacerbate this situation,” Sherrill said at a news conference.
Clashes between immigration officers and protesters occasionally have turned violent in other states, most notably in Minnesota, where federal personnel fatally shot two people and injured others.
State police have tried to set up areas for protesters to peacefully assemble, New Jersey officials said. But protesters who were ordered to disperse Friday night surrounded a law enforcement vehicle and made threats toward personnel, state police Lieutenant Colonel David Sierotowicz said on Saturday.
Some activists were seen retrieving face coverings, gas masks, fireworks, rocks and other projectiles from a nearby tent area, Sierotowicz said.
Video from Friday showed police advancing with riot shields and firing tear gas. Sierotowicz said police used standard tactics to move the crowd back, with no significant injuries to the public or law enforcement.
“We were not striking anybody last night,” he said.
Protests are fine as long as they remain peaceful, state officials said. At mid-afternoon on Saturday, dozens of protesters were chanting slogans but remaining behind the barriers that police had set up.
“Today and going forward, I urge those protesting outside of Delaney Hall to bring the temperature down, so we can focus on the detainees and their families,” Sherrill said.
(Reporting by Karen Freifeld in New York and Eduardo Munoz; Editing by Sergio Non and Franklin Paul)