Police have arrested at least 30 people for assaulting law enforcement and other felony offenses outside Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Delaney Hall immigrant detention facility in Newark, New Jersey, since Memorial Day.
A number of those arrested traveled from out-of-state, including Colorado, Connecticut, and Washington, to take part in the demonstration, which began on Sunday, May 24, as Democratic lawmakers gathered outside and demanded to tour the facility on the basis that detainees had allegedly poor conditions and substandard meals.
City and state police have assisted ICE in securing the detention site in the more than two weeks since protests and riots erupted, unlike at similar riots outside ICE facilities in Portland and Chicago last year. The Justice Department has begun to bring charges for federal-level crimes.
Nicolas Matthew Scelfo of Brooklyn, New York, faces up to 10 years in prison after being charged with influencing, impeding, and retaliating against a federal officer by threat. On May 27, the 27-year-old man allegedly told an ICE officer outside Delaney Hall, “I’ll kill your whole f****** family! Your whole f****** family is dead! Your children, your wife, all dead! I have your face, motherf*****! You’re dead! Dead!”
Told you. @FBI just arrested the man who threatened to kill ICE officers and their families. FAFO. https://t.co/ai2Y46nmOR
— Acting AG Todd Blanche (@DAGToddBlanche) May 30, 2026
Brendan John Geier, a 26-year-old from Madison, New Jersey, was arrested and charged with assaulting federal officers and causing bodily injury in late May, along with 20 other individuals who were arrested on charges of assaulting federal officers, according to a statement from ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations Newark acting Field Office Director Arthur Wilson, Jr.
The following week, Newark police arrested six people for blocking the entrance of Delaney Hall, damaging property, and refusing to disperse. Among the six arrested were Allison Wuu, a 19-year-old from Fort Collins, Colorado, and 18-year-old Lucas Jimenez, of Hoboken, New Jersey. Both were arrested on June 1. Four others arrested were from Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey.
Two out-of-towners from Illinois and New York were arrested on June 3 for aggravated assault against police, rioting, and other charges, according to local police.
Newark police announced on June 5 the arrest of Zion Napier, a 28-year-old man from Seattle, for criminal mischief.
A Brooklyn resident, Samuel Hoffman Becker, was arrested last week in connection with setting a dumpster on fire outside the ICE facility and charged with rioting and failure to disperse, disorderly conduct, and criminal mischief.
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Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said last week that assaulting and obstructing ICE would result in being prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
“RIOTERS will not slow us down and ICE operations remain undeterred,” Mullin wrote in a statement on X.
The Justice Department did not respond to a request for comment on arrests or charges filed.
