After nearly a week of rubber bullets,pepper spray,and baton-wielding clashes in a Newark Detention Center parking lot,federal agents have agreed to step back—and New Jersey State Police are now running the show outside.
Clashes between protesters and armed federal agents have eruptedat the parking lot of Delaney Hall in Newark since the Memorial Day Weekend.
may 29,2026
Federal agents have agreed to withdraw from the parking lot of an immigration detention center in New Jersey, allowing state officials to oversee protests that had turned violent under the oversight of the Department of Homeland Security.
Sgt. First Class Charles Marchan of the New Jersey State Police said in an interview on Friday that his agency had negotiated with federal officials to leave the area outside the Delaney Hall detention center in Newark so that the state police could assume control.
The change could restore order outside the center, where federal officers on Friday charged into a crowd, pushed protesters to the ground and sprayed a chemical irritant. One officer beat a demonstrator with a baton across the torso, thighs, knee and calves as he tried to flee. Three protesters were arrested and carried past a razor-wire fence into the detention center.
Markwayne Mullin, the homeland security secretary, said in a statement on Friday that the decision to remove the federal officers represented a victory for his agency because Gov. Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey had refused to allow state police to help Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.
“This is a win for law and order,” Mr. Mullin said in a statement. “Thank you, governor.”
The agency has insisted that federal agents have used the minimum amount of force needed to protect themselves from protesters, whom the officials described as rioters engaged in obstructing law enforcement officers from doing their job.
Ms. Sherrill said that state police officials would designate a protest zone on Friday where demonstrators can gather outside Delaney
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