Several immigrant groups and their supporters rallied outside the federal courthouse in Philadelphia on May 1 to support the continuation of a New Jersey state ban on Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention centers. The early morning protest organized by the New Jersey Alliance for Immigrant Justice, with 60 member organizations, brought out over 150 demonstrators to demand “No raids, no more detention centers and no deportations!”
Protesters outside federal court in Philadelphia demand continuation of New Jersey ban on ICE detention center, May 1, 2025. WW Photo Joe Piette
Other groups present included Migrante New Jersey, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders of New Jersey, POWER Philadelphia, American Friends Service Committee, Make the Road Pennsylvania, VietLead, the Pennsylvania Immigration Coalition and the Free Migration Project.
Protesters outside federal court in Philadelphia demand continuation of New Jersey ban on ICE detention center, May 1, 2025. WW Photo Joe Piette
New Jersey’s immigrant population is second only to California, with roughly one in four residents having been born outside of the United States.
New Jersey has laws limiting private, for-profit businesses’ involvement in the detention of migrants. In 2021, New Jersey immigrant rights organizers successfully pushed for state law AB5207, which prohibits ICE detention contracts in New Jersey. In 2023, U.S. District Judge Robert Kirsch supported the appeal by private prison company CoreCivic Inc. to strike down parts of the law, ruling it unconstitutional.
Former President Joe Biden sided with CoreCivic, saying the law would be “catastrophic” to federal immigration efforts. Now Trump is pushing to greatly expand his fascist deportation agenda. As of March 15, ICE held over 46,269 people in detention!
Citing a doctrine of “intergovernmental immunity,” the district court said CoreCivic did not have to comply with New Jersey law and could renew its contract with ICE to detain noncitizens at the Elizabeth [New Jersey] Detention Center. The court agreed with the company’s claim that the law was an infringement on the federal government’s ability to contract with private entities to detain immigrants.
In January 2024, New Jersey appealed the court’s decision, leading to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals hearing in Philadelphia in April 2025. A finding for CoreCivic could potentially result in three more detention centers opening within months.
Attorneys for New Jersey argued that Private ICE detention centers are not a core function of the federal government that states can be forced to provide. They raised that the federal government cannot ignore a state’s law, because it is inconvenient. The court had not made a decision by May 1.
CoreCivic history of abuse
Protesters outside federal court in Philadelphia demand continuation of New Jersey ban on ICE detention center, May 1, 2025. WW Photo Joe Piette
Speakers at the rally explained that the Elizabeth Detention Center has a history of abuse, medical negligence leading to deaths and mistreatment of people held there. The federal government pays $20 million dollars a year for the ICE contract with CoreCivic. The facility currently has about 300 beds.
Jenny Garcia, with Detention Watch Network NJ, described the horrific conditions at CoreCivic facilities across the country, including one in New Mexico where a sewage drainage crisis resulted in water being shut off for three days during which people were given only two small bottles of water to drink. Garcia said, “This morning one dorm facility was forced to evacuate, but CoreCivic wants to transfer people from the Elizabeth Center there.”
ICE also wants to reopen Delaney Hall in Newark, New Jersey, as an immigration detention center with over 1,000 beds and a 15-year contract worth over $1 billion.
Speakers at the rally raised that Pennsylvania has four ICE detention facilities, including the federal prison in Philadelphia, the Pike County Correctional Facility, the Clinton County Correctional Facility and the 1,876-bed Moshannon Valley Processing Center in Clearfield County.
Emily Lúa-Lúa, the lead youth organizer at Make the Road Pennsylvania, called the detention centers “concentration camps.” She said, “Immigration detention centers are inhumane, cruel and unnecessary.”
Shaira Cruz, speaking for Migrante New Jersey, said: “Nobody chooses to be undocumented, but this system denies migrants the rights to survive. That migrants are being released from these centers is proof that when we organize and refuse to be silent, we win! In every migrant there is hope, there is a community sense of justice.”
Cruz ended her remarks by leading the crowd in a Filipino version of the chant “The people, united, will never be defeated!”