Sherrill’s not on our side, as evidenced by State Police deployment

The scene outside Delaney Hall had all the markings of a moral test. Citizens, residents, neighbors—some from New Jersey, others from well beyond its borders—had gathered to protest a facility they call a concentration camp.

The target of their anger was a 1,000‑bed center operated by the private prison company GEO Group on behalf of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. For days, the complex had been the site of tense confrontations, a hunger and labor strike by detainees demanding release and better conditions, and growing political scrutiny.

Then Governor Rebecca ‘Mikie’ Sherrill gave an order. Facing escalating clashes, she directed the New Jersey State Police to take control of the area around the facility. What followed was not peace. Officers in riot gear sealed off access, using horses, metal gates and tear gas to enforce a newly imposed curfew.

At least 61 people were arrested. Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, a fellow Democrat, publicly questioned the tactics, calling the agency “a sword” and suggesting that the deployment led to unnecessary confrontations.

And now comes the betrayal that cuts deepest for the Democratic base that once believed in Sherrill. Enter Representative Josh Gottheimer, one of the most prominent Democrats to back Sherrill’s handling of the unrest.

Gottheimer praised both the governor and Attorney General Jennifer Davenport “for their decisive action to protect the community from out-of-state, lawless protestors at Delaney Hall Detention Facility.”

He said protesters crossed the line from peaceful demonstration into unlawful conduct, accusing some of knocking over barriers, using combat gear, and creating dangerous conditions.

Only one married to the mob, or a particularly of the corrupt New Jersey political establishment, would blame the citizens for protesting torture in a concentration camp.

“Instead of peacefully protesting in the designated areas, these groups have knocked over barriers and utilized combat gear, putting Jersey families, law enforcement, and federal workers in harm’s way,” Gottheimer said. “While I believe deeply in free speech, I do not support violent protests, the destruction of property, or attacks that endanger Jersey families and law enforcement.”

He praised Sherrill’s decision to deploy the State Police response team after demonstrators refused orders to move into a designated protest area. He suggested that the unrest has caused substantial harm to surrounding neighborhoods. “The unruly, out-of-state protestors have also prevented families from visiting loved ones at the detention center. These acts of destruction and violence do not reflect our values as a state.”

This is the same Democratic Party that built its identity on standing against inhumane detention, on defending the vulnerable, on trusting the grassroots. And here are two of its standard‑bearers—Sherrill and Gottheimer—siding with a concentration camp over their own constituents.

Gottheimer’s language echoes the oldest trick in the authoritarian playbook: blame the outsiders. “Out-of-state, lawless protestors.” “Combat gear.”

The implication is clear—these aren’t real New Jerseyans, these aren’t real Democrats, these are dangerous elements. But the people who were tear‑gassed, the people who were arrested, the people who showed up day after day to bear witness to an atrocity—they are the backbone of the party’s moral wing.

Sherrill and Gottheimer have just told them that their conscience is a crime.

Let us be plain about what that camp is. Reports from inside describe spoiled food, maggots, inadequate medical care, detainees suffering miscarriages.

Historians may debate the precise definition of “concentration camp,” but for the protesters, for the families of detainees, for anyone with eyes to see, the rows of chain‑link and concrete floors add up to a name that fits.

The same weekend that state police were pushing back protesters, the Sherrill administration was filing a lawsuit against the GEO Group, alleging the company had blocked state health inspectors and was running a facility with conditions unfit for human habitation.

The governor has called for the facility to be shut down, as her goon squad arrested citizens who are saying the same thing. The difference is, the protestors mean it. Politicians are posing.

The result is an absurdity that defies easy explanation: a governor who publicly condemns the conditions inside a concentration camp, who sues its operator for inhumanity, and who, in the same breath, deploys her own state police to enforce order at its gates. She found herself caught between the demands of public safety and the duties of basic humanity, and the choice she made satisfied no one—except perhaps Gottheimer, who seems eager to prove his centrist credentials by condemning the very activists who put Democrats in power.

The people of New Jersey are not naive. They know that protest is noisy and uncomfortable. They also know the difference between keeping the peace and protecting a problem. And what they saw last week was a governor trying desperately to have it both ways—and failing on both counts. They saw a congressman from their own party parroting the language of law‑and‑order conservatives. That is not leadership. It is a failure for which the people of New Jersey will remember. They always do.