Mullin Defends Migrant Jail Where NJ Senator Was Pepper-Sprayed

(Bloomberg) -- Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin defended conditions at a migrant detention center in New Jersey that was the scene of weekend protests in which two people were arrested and US Senator Andy Kim was hit with a cloud of pepper spray. 

The demonstrations outside Newark’s Delaney Hall showed the “radical left” priorities of Democratic leaders at a time when the government is trying to deport migrant criminals, Mullin said Wednesday at a White House cabinet meeting with President Donald Trump. 

“They decide to go out and protest a detention center where we’re housing rapists, child predators, murderers, drug dealers, and they choose Memorial Day of all the days,” Mullin said. 

“And then you have one of these senators who complained because he got splattered,” Mullin said. “I’m sorry, you probably shouldn’t have been there.”

Most detainees at Delaney Hall have no criminal history, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement data. The Department of Homeland Security tweeted photos of four men arrested in New Jersey who have criminal records. 

The comments offered one of the clearest indications yet that Mullin intends to maintain a hard-line posture toward people protesting the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, despite pledging when he took over the department in March to adopt a lower profile and take a more procedural approach than his predecessor, Kristi Noem. Mullin, a Republican, previously served as a senator from Oklahoma. 

Kim, a New Jersey Democrat, has said he went to Delaney Hall over the weekend amid reports of poor treatment of detainees and an ongoing hunger strike. According to his office, he was among people who were hit with a cloud from pepper pellets as ICE officers clashed with protesters outside the detention center. 

Images on social media showed a bystander washing out Kim’s eyes. The senator later told a local television station that the chemical irritated his eyes and throat.

Delaney Hall, a 1,000-bed ICE jail operated by GEO Group Inc., has been the site of multiple protests, including from lawmakers trying to access the facility, since the Trump administration reopened it in February 2025. GEO didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. 

Last year, US Representative LaMonica McIver, Democrat of New Jersey, was indicted on three counts of forcibly impeding and interfering with federal officers during an incident at the facility. McIver has denied the allegations and has asked a federal appeals court to dismiss the case.

Separately, local officials and lawmakers in New Jersey have also been pushing back on the administration’s plan to convert a warehouse into an immigration jail in Roxbury. Governor Mikie Sherrill, a Democrat who also joined protesters at Delaney Hall over the weekend, filed suit in March to block the warehouse jail plan.

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