The Worst of the Worst

ICE calls the detainees at Delaney Hall murderers and rapists. Reporting and the government’s own data show that most were never convicted of a crime!

When it became known last month that immigrants being held at the detention center in Newark were protesting conditions through a hunger strike, New Jersey Governor Mikie Sherrill demanded access in order to inspect the facility. Federal officials denied her request and declared that she and other Democratic officials in the state should be grateful that Immigration and Customs Enforcement was removing murderers, rapists, and other criminals from the state, “the worst of the worst.” It is a sentence meant to stand on its own because it avoids the need for examination. Whoever locks away the worst of the worst no longer has to explain who exactly is being locked away. Yet the government’s own data, including internal records reviewed this week, tell a very different story.

At the beginning of April, ICE stopped publishing what had previously been regular public reports on the number of people held in its facilities. Counting stopped almost as soon as the numbers began to contradict the narrative. Internal data show that of the 591 people held in Delaney Hall this week, 76, around thirteen percent, had been convicted of a crime and 123, around twenty one percent, had pending charges. On average, detainees had already been held there for about eighty days. The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, stated on Friday that it was “working quickly and overtime to move these foreign nationals from detention facilities to their final destination, home.” Notice the word. What is called home here is deportation, which is the opposite of what most people mean by home.

The earlier public report from April 2, before the numbers fell silent, is even clearer. At that time there were 891 people in Delaney Hall, 833 men and 58 women, and fewer than ten percent, specifically 61 men and two women, were classified as criminal.

Upon intake and regularly afterward, detainees are assigned a security risk classification based on what authorities attribute to them, ranging from low, medium low, medium high, and high, depending on prior convictions, conduct in detention, and “special housing concerns.” On April 2, a single detainee was considered high risk, while 789, nearly ninety percent, were classified as low risk. ICE also maintains a separate threat level determined by “criminality” and by “how recent and how severe the criminal conduct was,” on a scale from one to three, with one representing the most severe. Individuals without convictions are classified as having no threat level. On April 2, six detainees were placed in the highest category and around ninety percent were considered no threat at all. If one is searching for ICE facilities holding a large number of dangerous criminals, then Delaney Hall, like many other facilities, simply does not belong in that category. The answer is that simple.

Using data from the Deportation Data Project, which compiles government immigration enforcement data, it was found that among the 844 people held in Delaney Hall on March 10, around twelve percent were convicted offenders, around eighteen percent had pending charges, and around seventy percent were accused only of immigration violations. Of the 99 convicted individuals, not one had been convicted of homicide, sexual assault, or drug trafficking. Around seventy percent had been convicted of minor offenses and only nine of serious crimes. That, according to the agency’s own records, is the worst of the worst. They are overwhelmingly people whose offense consists of being in the country without papers, and among the few with convictions, most involve lesser offenses.

For two weeks now, Delaney Hall has been the site of ongoing and at times violent confrontations between demonstrators and security personnel. Since May 26, at least ninety demonstrators have been arrested. While Sherrill fought for access, federal officials insisted detainees were receiving proper care, denied the hunger strike, and accused her of staging “political theater.” “These sanctuary politicians should thank ICE officers for removing murderers, rapists, pedophiles, and drug traffickers from their communities,” Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Lauren Bis declared on May 25. “We need these politicians to stop spreading this nonsense and work with us.” Attached to the statement was a list of sixteen detainees arrested in New Jersey with brief descriptions of what was called their “background.” Listed were homicide, sexual assault, drug trafficking, aggravated assault, illegal weapons possession, and enticing a minor for immoral purposes. It remained unclear whether this “background” referred to convictions, charges, or a mixture of both. That ambiguity is the method. A background that may just as easily consist of an accusation becomes enough to paint a person with the gravest allegations, and the presumption of innocence owed to everyone is quietly reversed.

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Delaney Hall is operated by GEO Group, one of the country’s largest private prison operators, under a federal contract worth one billion dollars over fifteen years. According to company statements, the two story facility has one thousand beds and, according to court filings, an approved capacity of nearly twelve hundred. Detention here is also a business, and businesses fill beds. Asked this week for current data on detainees and criminal records, the department responded with a statement that did not include the requested information. “It is a crime to enter the United States illegally,” it stated. “Anyone held at Delaney Hall has broken the law. Anyone who comes into our country illegally, we will find and arrest.”

This is where the argument saves itself when the numbers no longer support it. If there are no murderers to present, then presence itself is declared the crime and suddenly everyone in the building becomes a criminal. Yet between a person who overstayed a visa and a murderer lies everything, and it is precisely that distance the phrase the worst of the worst is meant to erase. The power of the label lies in replacing evidence. One no longer has to show what someone did if one can decide what someone is. A government that counted as long as the numbers benefited it and stopped counting once they contradicted it has already admitted that truth was never the point. Permission was. And when a state has to lie in order to justify whom it imprisons, then in the end it is not the detainee who stands under suspicion but detention itself.

And again today, many cases against ICE remain pending. We will give everything, together with lawyers and human rights groups, so that innocent people may once again find their way to freedom. Behind every file stands a human being, and as long as that remains true, every single case is worth fighting for. Human rights know no borders. Human rights can be violated anytime and anywhere. That should never be forgotten.