We’re at the “Hitting Protestors with Cars” Stage of ICE Fascism Now

You’d probably be hard-pressed to find a more apt visual metaphor for the status of protesters in the eyes of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) than a young woman, waving an American flag, being rammed from behind by a cherry red sports car driven by a private prison employee. And yet that’s exactly what the assembled protesters outside of New Jersey’s infamous Delaney Hall ICE detention facility witnessed on Father’s Day, as one of their own–an as-yet-unidentified woman–was struck by a vehicle that easily could have killed her, adding another tally to the list of names such as Renee Good and Alex Pretti in the process.

Both protesters and family members of those incarcerated in Delaney Hall, a for-profit detention facility operated under government contract by The GEO Group, were present Sunday afternoon for a Father’s Day vigil, calling for the release of fathers held inside one of the nation’s most notorious ICE prisons. Amid the backdrop of families holding signs with slogans such as “Free the dads, close the camps,” as people placed neckties symbolizing lost fathers on fences ringing the facility, it seems some employee of the facility picked this moment to approach in his Dodge Charger from behind, accelerating toward a young woman strutting and waving an inverted American flag. The resulting impact can be seen in the embedded post below, as the car plows straight through the young woman–thankfully not seeming to hit her entirely flush, given that the Charger just keeps going despite the strike. Those present on the scene said the car did not stop, nor did the driver return, while the woman was subsequently transported to the nearby University Hospital and treated for non-life-threatening injuries. Video of another angle of the incident demonstrates that the Charger just kept driving into the facility. DHS and ICE have offered no public comment on the incident, perhaps because it hasn’t yet blown up into widely covered national news.

Worse still, the response of ICE according to witnesses was not to immediately attempt to deescalate the situation, but instead to emerge and assault those who were gathered outside the facility with pepper spray and mace.

“We began to see ICE lining up behind the gates,” said Birdie Green of the Sussex Visibility Brigade, to NJ.com. “That’s when GEO Group employees began driving through in their personal vehicles. She was not blocking vehicles, and could not see it coming.”

ICE runs over woman — today.

Delaney Hall in NJ.

Word is she is ok. — FUCK ICE!

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— Outspoken™️ (@out5p0ken.bsky.social) 3:18 PM · Jun 21, 2026

Protests both inside and outside Delaney Hall have continued to roil the facility for months, following the leaking of an “SOS” letter from detainees inside, signed by 300 prisoners who alleged widespread mistreatment, inedible food and violence. Inmates were reportedly engaging in a hunger strike in protest, something that newly arrived (at the time) DHS secretary Markwayne Mullin flatly denied existing. Despite the denial, at least 60 lawsuits have been filed by detainees at Delaney Hall, alleging a wide variety of medical neglect and other forms of abuse. The prison is operated by GEO Group, one of the biggest private prison corporations in the country, on a 15-year, $1 BILLION federal contract.

DHS, meanwhile, simply continues to deny that literally any problem at the site exists, telling NJ.com that “There is no hunger strike at Delaney Hall at this time,” and “No detainees are being beaten or abused.” Seems reassuring, and like the kind of thing one would absolutely need to say if you were not beating or abusing detainees.

As if you need specifics, consider just the case of Jean Wilson Brutus, a 41-year-old Haitian asylum seeker who was imprisoned very briefly in Delaney Hall earlier this year. I say “very briefly” because Brutus was at Delaney Hall for all of five hours before he was declared dead, through means that the official ICE death report simply chooses to not explain whatsoever. The seemingly healthy Brutus entered the facility and passed his introductory medical screening with no concerns, but was shortly thereafter rushed to a local hospital and died. ICE’s supposedly detailed detainee death report gives no cause of death, or explanation as to what happened to him or how he ended up at the hospital, although a family member claimed she was told by a nurse that Brutus had “fallen down a flight of stairs,” a detail that appears in none of ICE’s reporting. His death has never subsequently been explained, with ICE stating only that it was a “medical emergency.”

So perhaps with that in mind, you can imagine why someone whose husband or father was imprisoned within Delaney Hall might feel a bit of apprehension, enough to join demonstrations outside the facility, beseeching an uncaring government to behave with empathy rather than abject cruelty. And then, you know, someone hits you with a car. Welcome to the immigration debate in 2026.