Delaney Hall Detention Center: The Billion-Dollar Bed

Sassy Politics with Christi Chanelle

Episode 61

Delaney Hall Detention Center: The Billion-Dollar Bed

Release Date: Tuesday, June 2, 2026

There are people in America right now writing S.O.S. letters from inside a detention center.

Not in a movie.

Not in another country.

Right here. Right now.

In this episode of Sassy Politics, Christi Chanelle takes a deep dive into Delaney Hall Detention Center in Newark, New Jersey—a facility operating under a contract worth approximately one billion dollars over fifteen years.

Who profits when detention becomes a business?

What happens when families, activists, clergy members, and elected officials refuse to look away?

Why are people standing outside the gates day after day, linking arms, risking arrest, and demanding answers?

And what do reports from detainees, family members, advocates, and members of Congress reveal about conditions inside?

This episode follows the money, the contracts, the corporate incentives, the protests, and the human stories at the center of it all.

Because eventually every political issue becomes personal to somebody.

And for the families outside Delaney Hall, it's already personal.

In This Episode

✔ The history of private detention in America

✔ How GEO Group became one of the largest detention contractors in the country

✔ The billion-dollar contract behind Delaney Hall

✔ Reports from detainees, families, and members of Congress

✔ The hunger strike and S.O.S. letter

✔ Gabriela Soto and the families fighting for answers

✔ Why protesters are linking arms and standing in front of vehicles

✔ Senator Andy Kim, Governor Mikie Sherrill, and the growing public pressure campaign

✔ The four levels of action anyone can take

✔ What YOU can do next

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See You Next Tuesday

New episodes of Sassy Politics drop every Tuesday because these headlines are about us.

Stay loud.

Stay human.

And keep your eyes on Delaney Hall.

Disclaimer

This content may include satirical commentary, altered media, or opinion-based analysis intended for educational, entertainment, or advocacy purposes. Any video clips, images, or quotes that have been edited or recreated are clearly intended as political or cultural critique—not factual representations. Viewer discretion and independent research are encouraged.

Transcript

SOS Letters From Inside America

0:01

There are people in America right now writing SOS letters from inside a detention center. It's not a movie. Or some foreign country. It is right now, today, in America. Human beings are reportedly refusing food because they say it is the only way someone will listen. Families are standing outside the gates begging for answers. Members of Congress are demanding access, and somewhere in the middle of all of it is a billion-dollar contract. A billion dollars. For one detention center. So the question is not whether you agree with immigration policy. The question is if people are screaming for help, do we look away because politics makes us uncomfortable? Or do we freaking pay attention? Today we are talking about the Laney Hall Detention Center in Newark, New Jersey. And by the end of this episode, you're going to understand why people are protesting outside its gates, why families are risking everything to tell their stories, and why money is sitting right in the middle of it. And most importantly, though, what you can actually do about it. But before someone jumps in my comments and says, What is the alternative? Just let rapists and murderers roam the streets. That is not the question we are asking today. The question is whether human beings deserve food that will not make them sick, whether pregnant women deserve medical care. Whether people deserve due process. Now I know that's a big debate. The question, the biggest question, is whether a billion-dollar corporation should be allowed to operate without serious public scrutiny when people are raising alarms about what is happening inside. Those are the questions. And we are about to dig into every single one of them. And this is Sassy Politics.

Why Delaney Hall Feels Personal

2:34

This one is personal for me. I wasn't raised in Newark, but every time I flew into New Jersey, that is where I landed. My mom lived in New Jersey. My best friend lives in New Jersey. And the majority of the people that I grew up with still live there. So it's obvious that part of my heart will always belong to that state. So when I start seeing people standing outside Delaney Hall every single day in the heat, holding signs, refusing to leave, I couldn't just keep scrolling past it. At first I thought it was a local story, but the more I researched, the more I realized this is actually an American story. And then I started to get angry. The kind of angry that stays in your body until you do something about it.

The Contract And The Billion-Dollar Bed

3:26

Delaney Hall sits on Doremus Avenue in Newark, New Jersey. It is operated by Geo Group, one of the biggest private detention companies in the country. And it reopened as an ICE detention facility under a long-term federal contract. A contract GEO itself said was expected to generate more than $60 million in annual revenue in the first year of operations with an estimated 15-year value of about $1 billion. $1 billion for one facility. And that is why this episode is called the Billion Dollar Bed. Because when you start following the beds, you start following the money.

How Private Prisons Became A Market

4:17

To understand Delaney Hall, we have to go back to 1984. Ronald Reagan is in the White House. The war on drugs is in full swing. Federal prisons are overflowing. The government has a big problem that they can't seem to solve fast enough. Too many people and not enough beds. So two businessmen looked at the problem and saw something else completely different. They saw a market. They walked into a meeting with the federal government and basically said, let us build the facilities, let us hire the staff, and let us run the whole damn operation. You just pay us per person, per night, and per bed. That company was Corrections Corporation of America. Today, they go by Core Civic. A cleaner name. Same business model though. And just like that, the private prison industry had a birth certificate. Over the next four decades, that industry expanded. It moved from prisons into immigration detention. Companies got bigger, contracts got bigger, and the business model got stronger. Because once money is attached to detention, the incentives change. A human being becomes a bed, a bed becomes a number, and a number becomes revenue. And of course, revenue becomes power. And I want to be super, super clear. I am not saying every person who works inside one of these facilities is evil. I am not saying every officer, employee, or staff member wakes up trying to hurt people. Systems do not require every individual inside to be evil. That is what makes systems so dangerous. They can produce harm even when people inside them are just doing their jobs. But when the system itself pays a corporation to keep human beings in the beds, we have to ask what that system is designed to actually protect. Is it people or is it profit?

GEO Group And Profit Incentives

6:32

In February 2025, Geo Group announced it had been awarded a 15-year fixed price contract with ICE for Delaney Hall. The facility is company-owned. The beds are human, and the estimated value is about $1 billion. Geo Group's founder and executive chairman, George C. Zoli, said Delaney Hall would play an important role in providing detention bed space. He also said the company was preparing for what it believed was an unprecedented opportunity to help the federal government meet expanded immigration enforcement priorities. An unprecedented opportunity. Wow, look at that. That is the phrase that stuck with me. Because for families, this is terror. For detainees, this is confinement. For communities, this is trauma. But for a corporation, this is absolutely cha-ching opportunity. So let's talk about who is behind that opportunity. Geo Group is not some little local company. This is a publicly traded corporation. That means investors, shareholders, executives, a board, annual reports, revenue goals, contracts, margins, growth strategies. Their senior leadership includes people responsible for finance, contracts, compliance, legal strategy, secure services, and federal relationships. I know all of that sounds like a big pile of corporate freaking gibberish. I get it. But it matters because when we talk about Delaney Hall, we are not just talking about one building in Newark. We're talking about a corporate structure, executives making decisions and government contracts being treated like growth opportunities. It's about the high and mighty dollar. And in Geo's own 2025 annual report, ICE made up a massive share of its customer revenue. So when immigration enforcement expands, companies like Geo are not just watching the news or watching the bottom line. I just want to make that very, very clear. There is ulterior motives here. This is not just about the policy. It's not just immigration court. This is a business model. Okay? So when people ask, why does it feel like enforcement keeps getting harsher? Why does it feel like more people are being swept up? Why does it feel like cases drag on while people sit in detention? Follow the money. Because the money is not hiding. It is sitting right there in the contract.

Hunger Strike And Conditions Allegations

9:25

So, what's happening inside this billion-dollar facility? This is where it stops being about the contracts and is all about the people. In May, hundreds of detainees inside Delaney Hall reportedly launched a hunger and labor strike. They stopped eating. They stopped working facility jobs. Jobs that advocates say can pay as little as $1 a day. So it's slave labor, if we're going to be blunt. They used the only leverage they had left: their bodies, their labor, their refusal. But they also had opportunities inside to call their families. They told them about the food. They also told them about the medical care, the living conditions, delays, fears, and the feeling that nobody was listening to them. Congressman Jerry Nadler said detainees reported food that very often contained maggots and that the only medicine available was Tylenol. He also described serious medical concerns, including a woman waiting over a month for a mammogram after finding a lump in her breast, and a man with colon cancer who was reportedly not receiving treatment. Senator Andy Kim also went inside and said he saw chaos inside and outside that facility. He described detainees protesting lack of due process, disgusting food, and poor treatment, while families and advocates stood outside calling for help.

Detainee Does Not Mean Disposable

10:56

So let's pause for a second, because when people hear the word detainee, some of them immediately shut off their humanity. They hear detainee and think criminal. They hear immigration and think invasion. They hear detention and think, well, they must have done something really, really wrong. But many of the people inside immigration detentions are not serving criminal sentences. Many are fighting immigration cases. A lot of them have families and children who are U.S. citizens. Many have been living in this country for years. And even if someone has made mistakes, even if someone has a complicated story, that does not erase their humanity. I think that's the problem here. That does not erase medical care or human dignity. We cannot let propaganda convince us that some people are so disposable that they do not deserve clean food, medicine, or a chance to be heard. That is not law and order. That is dehumanization. And dehumanization is always a first step towards something worse.

Gabriella Soto And A Family’s Fight

12:06

And now I want to talk about one woman in particular. Her name is Gabriella Soto. She is pregnant. She has children. Her husband, Martin Soto, has been detained inside Delaney Hall. And Gabriella became one of the people standing outside those gates demanding answers. She showed up. She spoke, she organized, she made noise. And that's what makes this part for me so very powerful. It's the people. Because Gabriella is not some polished political figure with a fancy title and a press team. She's just a wife, a mother, a pregnant woman standing outside a detention center trying to get people to care about her husband and everyone else inside that building. So many people think activism starts when you feel brave. It does not. Sometimes activism starts when you are terrified, exhausted, pregnant, overwhelmed, and out of options. Sometimes activism starts when doing nothing becomes more painful than doing something. And when Martin Soto became publicly connected to the hunger strike, reports say he was transferred out of Delaney Hall. Many protesters and advocates believe that transfer was retaliation. Officials say they were able to move him, but the people outside saw something else. They saw a hunger strike organizer being removed. They saw a family being separated even further. They saw a message being sent. And they reacted. But I want to also talk about the people outside. While detainees were risking their health inside the facility, families and neighbors, activist clergymen, elected officials, and ordinary people were standing outside those gates every single day, and still are, as you listen to this episode. They're showing up. And people are still showing up. This did not end in one rally. This became a daily pressure. When reports surfaced that Martin Soto was being transferred out of Delaney Hall, protesters did something most of us only imagined doing. The brave. They physically linked arms. They formed a human chain. They stood in front of vehicles leaving the facility. They tried to stop them from taking Soto out of the building. How desperate do we have to be before they decide the only thing left to do is to stand in the damn road and stop a vehicle yourself? How wrong does something have to be for them to put their own bodies between a government vehicle and where it's trying to go? I am a straight edge. I would not want to do anything to break the law, to hurt anyone, to stop a government vehicle? Are you kidding me? So that response, of course, had escalated

Protests Escalate And Force Response

15:18

quickly. Federal agents moved in. Pepper spray was deployed, pepper balls were fired. Some reports described stun guns and tear gas being used during the days of protest. Protesters reported being shoved, tackled, restrained, pinned down, pushed back, and hurt. We've been dealing with this thing for 400 years. Literally, what y'all going through right now? We've been dealing with this shit for 400 years. I'ma let y'all know that. I swear to God. Guaranteed. Know what the fuck we going through. And these people be the cause, bro. Oh my god. Holy shit. He was just talking. He was just talking. He was literally just talking. They were arrested. There were curfews. There were expanded restriction areas. I think they called them there. I guess there was First Amendment zones or something. I thought we had First Amendment everywhere we went, and all zones. Clearly, the government thinks differently. There were officers in riot gear, police on horseback, and families watching the area around a detention center turn into a confrontation zone. That's not really normal. That's not something we should just scroll past and ignore. And Senator Kim's own statement said civilians were tackled and restrained, and that agents fired pepper balls and spray into the crowd. This is not being my normal dramatic self. This is a United States Senator describing what he says he witnessed outside Delaney Hall. So listen, you do not have to agree with every protest tactic. You absolutely not. You don't have to agree with every political position. But you should ask yourself, what would make you stand outside a detention center for days? What would make you lock arms with strangers? What would make you risk being pepper sprayed? What would make you risk arrest? And what would make you refuse to go home? Because whatever your answer is, that is how serious the people outside Delaney Hall believe this situation has become. And I do not want you to miss what just happened here. Up until now, we have been talking about what happened to people. What is happening inside the building, what is happening to families, what is happening to detainees. Um, but the people standing outside Delaney Hall made a decision. They stopped waiting for somebody else to do something, they became the somebody.

New Jersey Law And The Power Imbalance

18:10

So what about the system that allowed this? Because Delaney Hall did not just appear out of nowhere. New Jersey passed a law in 2021 trying to ban private facilities from holding ICE detainees. That law was challenged. The legal fight continued and the larger system kept moving. Newark officials raised concern. The city sued. There were disputes over permits, there were court battles, there were elected officials trying to get inside, and yet the facility reopened. Why? Because when there is a billion-dollar contract on the table, there is money to fight, money to wait and appeal, money to hire lawyers, and money to lobby. Money to outcast communities that are already exhausted. The people inside Delaney Hall do not have billion-dollar resources. The families outside do not have billion-dollar resources. The protesters standing in the road, yep, you guessed it, don't have billion-dollar resources. But Geo Group does, yeah. The federal government, it does. The power imbalance is the story. Because when a corporation can profit from detention and the government can expand enforcement, and communities are left fighting from the sidewalk, we have to ask: who is the system actually built to serve? It's that same song and dance we've been saying the whole time. It's us against them. Yeah, and we need to band together. When I talk about corruption, I'm not saying a judge has convicted every person involved of a crime. I am talking about the rot inside the incentive. The corruption of priorities. The kind of corruption where human suffering becomes a line item and a big money draw to the bank. Where detention becomes that revenue, you know, financial reporting in people's faces, they're not in that line item. Where a family's worst day becomes somebody else's profit and opportunity. That is the corruption I'm talking about. And it's right here. It's in front of all of us. Yeah.

Four Levels Of Action You Can Take

20:45

I I know some of you are listening right now thinking, okay, Christy, now what? What am I supposed to do? I have a job, I have kids, I have bills. I cannot fly to Newark. I cannot stand outside Delaney Hall. I can't spend every single day protesting, so what difference can I possibly make? And that's fair. Most people can't drop their lives. I can't, and stand outside a detention center. But that does not mean you cannot do anything. And I think that's one of the biggest lies we tell ourselves. We convince ourselves that if we cannot do everything, we should not do anything. We tell ourselves that if we cannot be the person standing in the front of the vehicle, then our contribution doesn't make a difference. And that's simply not true. Stop telling yourself that you cannot do anything. Because that is exactly how people stay on the sidelines. Stop telling yourself that attention is not action. It absolutely is. The people inside Delaney Hall wanted somebody to know. The families outside Delaney Hall wanted Somebody to care. And the reason we are talking about it right now is because somebody paid attention. Somebody refused to look away. And maybe that is where your role starts, too. Because action has levels, the people outside Delaney Hall are operating at a very, very high level. They are physically showing up, putting their bodies where their beliefs are. Most people are not there yet. And that's okay. And that's because every movement has to start somewhere. So what does action actually look like? You you read, you learn, you listen. You stop scrolling past stories because they make you uncomfortable. You stop saying, I do not know enough. And you start saying, I am willing to learn. Being a witness means you refuse to let people suffer in silence. You pay attention, you save that article, you listen to the families, you watch those testimonies, you learn their names, you learn the system. And I know that sounds small, but it's not. Because every cover-up depends on people not paying attention, right? They're trying to cover it up. We need to uncover it. Every abuse of power depends on people being too tired to care. Every system like this survives when the public looks away and ignores it. Witnessing is the first crack in the wall. Alright, level two is the signal booster. This is where you take what you have learned and help it to travel. You share the reporting, you share the organizations, you share the family stories, you send this episode to someone who needs to hear it. You post about it, you talk about it, you bring it up in spaces where people would rather avoid it. And I know that's hard, but you do it anyway. Because silence is comfortable, but it also protects the powerful. And when ordinary people become amplifiers, stories become harder to bury. That is why the people outside Delaney Hall matter so much. They forced attention, they made noise, they made people look, and they made elected officials respond. And they made media show up. That's how we know about it. They made the country notice Newark. You may not be able to stand outside that gate, but you can make sure the people standing there are not standing alone. Level three is participant. This is where you start using your actual civic power. You call your representatives, you email your senators, you show up at town halls, ask direct questions, and support legal defense funds. You donate where you can, you volunteer if you can, you follow local organizations already doing the work. You join a meeting, sign up for alerts, and become reachable. And please hear me. You do not have to become a full-time activist overnight. You do not have to know every law. I know it seems intimidating. You don't have to be perfect. You just have to stop being permanently unavailable to the moment you are living in. It's a big moment. Democracy does not only die when bad people act, it dies when exhausted people disengage. And I get it. We're all tired. But tired cannot be the end of this story. Level four is the disruptor. This is where you organize. Lead, create, build community like LinkedWe Stand. Start the group chat, host the meeting, make the content, plan the supply drive, support the protest, train the volunteers, protect the vulnerable, become the person who refuses to let that story die. This is the level the protesters outside Delaney Hall are showing us. They are not just watching history, they are interrupting it. And no, not everyone is ready for that level. Not everyone can be there physically, not everyone can risk the arrest. Not everybody can put their body on the line, but everyone can move one level forward. If you are ignoring it, become a witness. If you are witnessing it, become a signal booster. If you are sharing it, become a participant. And if you are participating, become a disruptor. One step. That is how movements are built. One step. One person. One link at a time. Families need support. If you can donate, donate. If you cannot donate, share the links. If you cannot share publicly, send it privately to someone who can. Keep talking about it. Share this episode, share the news, share Gabriela's story. Share what's happening inside or what's happening outside. Because the reason Delaney Hall is getting attention is that people refuse to let it disappear. Every time you share the story, you make it harder to bury. Ask yourself what level you are ready for. Witness, signal booster, participant, disruptor. Just don't stay at level zero.

The Questions We Cannot Avoid

27:36

Before we stop the episode, I want to leave you with a few questions. This isn't specifically for Democrats or liberals or Republicans. It's just for you. Let's drop all this politics bullshit. If this were your husband inside Delaney Hall, would you want people to look away? If this was your daughter waiting for medical care, would you want people to stay quiet? If this were your father writing SOS on a piece of paper, would you want people arguing about politics? Or would you want them paying attention? Because eventually every issue stops being political. And it eventually becomes personal. So for the family standing outside Delaney Hall, right now, it's already, it's already personal. At the heart of this story is just one question. I know I've asked you a lot of I hope you've asked yourself a lot of these questions actually. Um, what kind of country are we willing to become? Not what kind of country do you say we are? What kind of country are we willing to become? A country where a corporation can make money holding human beings in detention while families beg for answers? A country where pregnant women say they are not getting care and people shrug because immigration makes them uncomfortable? A country where people write SOS from inside a detention center, and the public response is, well, what did they do? Or a country where enough of us get loud enough that ignoring it is no longer an option. Gabriela Soto showed up. Families showed up. Protesters, clergy, members of Congress, they all showed up. And now we have to decide whether we are gonna look away or whether we are gonna act like these headlines are actually about us. The people outside Delaney Hall became the somebody. Now it's our turn to decide what level we are willing to step into. I'm Christy Chanel. This is sassy politics because these headlines they are about us. Stay loud, stay human, and keep your eyes on Delaney Hall. I'll see you next Tuesday.