Despite reports, the organized strike by detainees continues inside Delaney Hall—an ICE detention facility in Newark, New Jersey—sources tel
Lana Leonard and V Spehar at Under The Desk News:
Everyone cheered as Tracey Sims, a nurse, walked out of Delaney Hall.
She just married her husband even though he is currently detained inside the immigration private prison owned by GEO Group in Newark, New Jersey.
She was smiling as she entered a shaded area outside the detention center and outside of the sun, filled with chairs, community and journalists. Sims grabbed a cup of lemonade as she cheered with everyone around her. Her smile faded slowly as she sat down in the shade. The momentary celebration simmered back into reality.
Sims’s husband Haruna Zakaria has been in detention for 11 months.
Among Zakaria are, and were, a well organized force of men, women, and people on a hunger and a labor strike. Zakaria set up the wedding with different types of flowers and planters, Sims shared.
“It was really beautiful,” Sims said. “I can’t deny it now. I’m marrying him, but it’s still a sad occasion, because we have to do it in the prison.”
Hundreds of people fill the “concentration camp” all accused of crime, but most people in Delaney Hall have no criminal records and wish to resume their lives, to return to their families, and their homes. In this article I’ll make a global connection to U.S. and Israeli oppression against mass populations in Palestine, Iran and Lebanon.
“He’s suffering in this place,” Sims wrote to UTDN in an email.
[...]
Haruna Zakaria has nothing to do with the organizing efforts inside Delaney Hall. But those who did, mainly 300 men in unit 2, started a hunger and a labor strike on May 22, to protest the conditions of the prison. Some of those conditions include worms in rotting food, withheld medical care from people (some with chronic illness like HIV), and beatings from GEO guards including being locked in an unventilated room filled with tear gas or pepper spray, according to sources close to the matter.
Conflicting reports have stated that the hunger and labor strike is “over,” according to Kevin Ortega-Rojas of Here’s Why Kevin. He let UTDN know that he has been on the ground “since day one” of the strike, and clarified his reporting.
The “strike may be continuing with some detainees but it can’t possibly be growing when we’ve documented the transfer and release of many of those who started the strike,” Ortega-Rojas commented to UTDN. “I’ve spoken to wives/family members of at least five detainees who started the strike and said they only lasted a few days—they stopped once ICE agents were allowed inside to assault them.”
However, sources close to organizers detained inside of Delaney Hall have told UTDN that while numbers are decreasing due to ICE and GEO Group retaliation, the strike continues.
In a way, the strike has reignited momentum. Catalina of Coescha (a national, non-violent movement founded in 2016 in pursuit of fighting for permanent protection, dignity, and respect for all undocumented immigrants) told UTDN that as of June 10 the women’s unit, unit 1, is also on strike inside Delaney Hall. While women joined the men in the initial strike, this is renewed commitment with new, yet similar demands from previous strikers.
According to a press release from Cosecha, on the morning of June 10 (which corroborates part of Ortega-Rojas’s report) ICE reportedly removed around 90 people from their units inside Delaney Hall, and are being processed for transfer to different prisons or units as a way to disband connections. The same release outlines that this is in addition to the suspected 300 people (who may or may not be involved in the strike) who were transferred out of Delaney Hall over the weekend. These transfers seemed to have occurred as Geo Group and ICE systematically denied families visitation and cut communications between them and their loved ones.
Advocates are demanding Geo Group immediately restore full visitation and communications rights.
Dozens of women continue the labor and hunger strike. They are saying, “We are mothers, daughters, sisters. We are people and we demand justice,” the press release reads. There will be an apparent press conference outside Delaney Hall today, June 11, to announce the demands of women on strike.
[...]
From the “Concentration Camps” of Delaney Hall to Air Prisons of Palestine
Outside the tented area—near bags of contaminated goods—stood an activist with Jewish Voices for Peace, Marianne Pita. For her the connection between U.S. immigration policy and Israel’s genocide in Palestine (and their forever war for “Greater Israel”) are all connected.
She was advocating against the “abysmal” conditions of Delaney Hall just as she has against the conditions Palestinians face abroad under Israeli occupation.
Under The Desk News reports on the story of the GEO Group-owned ICE concentration camp Delaney Hall and their detainees seeking direct communication with the outside world.
Superintendents pushed back against claims that inclusive policies endanger children, arguing that schools have a responsibility to support
Jacob Ogles at The Advocate:
Congressional Republicans harangued school superintendents from across the country for creating inclusive campus environments for transgender students.
The U.S. House Education and Workforce Committee subpoenaed leaders of some of America’s largest school districts and, on Wednesday, cast protections for trans youth as violations of parental rights and the civil rights of peers. In particular, Republicans aggressively questioned Dr. Macquline King, superintendent and CEO of Chicago Public Schools, and Dr. Maria Su, superintendent of the San Francisco Unified School District.
Michigan Rep. Tim Walberg asked Su to say at what age children should be “exposed to drag queen story hour,” following up by asking when they may be “prepared for” the experience of having someone in drag read them a book.
“We welcome all 49,000 students as they are. We support our students. We work really hard,” she replied. “We follow state and federal laws where we align our curriculum with state standards.”
Walberg then asked whether families with a religious objection can “opt out” of such an event, a right the district allows. “I still didn’t get the age requirement,” Walberg said.
Superintendents from both urban and suburban districts pushed back on characterizations of their curricula as problematic.
“Too often, the public narrative frames schools and parents as adversaries. That is not the reality I see in our community or in public education more broadly,” said Loudoun County Public Schools Superintendent Aaron Spence, who leads a district in Virginia.
“I am a parent and believe it is critical that schools respect and listen to our parents as we work alongside them to educate our students. The overwhelming majority of parents and educators want the same things for our children: for them to be safe, academically challenged, emotionally supported, and prepared to contribute positively to their communities after graduation.”
But Florida Rep. Randy Fine claimed during the hearing that transgender students were not disciplined the same as cisgender ones in the Virginia district. “Why did the girl pretending to be a boy, who filmed the boys in their restroom, why was there no discipline for that student?” asked Fine. “Why did the people complaining about the girl coming into the boy’s restroom but not the girl who was filming?”
[...]
Democrats on the committee defended schools with inclusive policies.
“Every student, especially our students of color, our transgender and gender expansive students, our immigrant students, and our students with disabilities, deserve a safe place to learn where they can grow and thrive,” said Virginia Rep. Bobby Scott, the committee’s ranking Democrat.
And Oregon Rep. Suzanne Bonamici, also a Democrat, said too many states are imposing policies that hurt and erase trans youth.
“There are several factors that are causing real risk, not just hyped up political perceived risk,” she said. “Where trans students go to the bathroom and books about queer people and accurate history are not on that list. In fact, multiple public health studies show zero evidence of correlation between transgender individuals using gender appropriate restrooms and an increase in sex sexual offenses.”
Still, Walberg told King he considered it “child abuse” to allow trans boys to sleep on overnight trips in the same rooms as those assigned male at birth.
House Republicans on the House Education and Workforce Committee pushed the false lie that trans-inclusive school policies are equivalent to “child abuse.”
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