Sen. Andy Kim says that getting pepper-sprayed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers at a protest outside a detention facility in New Jersey on Monday underscores the need for reform at the agency.
“I’ve seen a lot of crazy things in my career, but to see this kind of chaos and confrontation in our streets here in America, you know, it’s hard to watch, because it just shows you just how broken we are as a country. And something that really, really hit home, is just how divided we are and how much violence is becoming a norm in this country,” Kim said in an interview with NOTUS on Tuesday.
“It just shows you the lack of accountability, just the lawlessness,” the senator added.
The New Jersey Democrat visited the Delaney Hall detention center in Newark, where around 300 migrants are holding a hunger strike in protest of the center’s conditions, alongside other Democratic officials from the state. Kim spoke with several protesters who told him they are lacking proper food and medical care at the facility, which is operated by GEO Group, one of ICE’s biggest for-profit contractors for building and managing detention centers.
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“The head of GEO Group inside just looked at me right to my face and said I was a liar, just blatantly to my face called me a liar,” Kim said about raising concerns voiced by migrants .
When he walked out of the facility, Kim, who is a former diplomat, tried to deescalate a tense confrontation between ICE agents in an armored car and a group of protesters. He stood between the two groups, and ultimately, ICE agents used pepper spray to separate the two sides, an incident captured in photos and videos that have since gone viral online.
“ICE decided that they were just going to continue and just plow through the crowds with the armored vehicle and several other vehicles, and everything just descended very rapidly,” Kim said. “I saw multiple people just tackle down to the ground, people start throwing things, and then ICE started to fire pepper balls in our direction, and again I was trying to just maintain some separation between … the crowd and the ICE agents, and I was just kind of in the middle of all this, and pushing on both sides to stay back.”
The Department of Homeland Security said the protesters had blocked ICE agents’ movement at the facility, criticizing Kim and the other Democratic lawmakers for supporting lax immigration policies.
“This is nothing more than a political stunt by New Jersey sanctuary politicians for fundraising clicks,” DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin said in a post on X, denying the existence of a hunger strike. “We need these sanctuary politicians to stop peddling this garbage and cooperate with us to get these criminals out of their state.”
Kim, who serves on the Senate Homeland Security Committee, said he was initially denied entry into the facility, but gained access only after placing a phone call to Mullin. New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill, who was also at the protest, said she was denied entry into the building.
Democrats have been pushing for reforms to ICE following the deaths of two American citizens who were shot in January by federal immigration agents in Minnesota. Kim isn’t the only senator to tangle with ICE, either. California Sen. Alex Padilla was pushed to the ground and handcuffed by federal agents after he attempted to ask a question at an ICE press conference in Los Angeles last year. Another New Jersey Democrat. Rep. LaMonica McIver was indicted last summer over a confrontation outside Delaney Hall.
Senate Republicans are expected to try again to pass a party-line bill next week that includes billions of dollars more in funding for ICE enforcement operations. They abruptly dropped plans to do so last week after an internal rebellion over a Department of Justice settlement fund for allies of President Donald Trump who believe they were wrongly prosecuted by former President Joe Biden’s administration, including people convicted of participating in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol.
Democrats are planning to continue to put pressure on Republicans to defend the need for more ICE funding over other priorities like health care or rising energy costs.
“It’s going to continue to get worse and worse for them, because, right now I’m back here in Jersey, you know, everyone’s still besides themselves that we’re still at war with Iran, that more strikes just happened the other day, and that we’re continuing to see their gas prices go up, the affordability crisis growing,” Kim said. “I’m still trying to use everything I can to be able to say we can’t continue to fund this lawlessness and unaccountability that I myself not only saw but experienced firsthand.”
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