Senator Andy Kim walked into chaos outside a New Jersey immigration detention facility on Monday and ended up with chemical burns in his eyes for his trouble. The Democrat said federal agents sprayed him with pepper as tensions exploded between protesters and Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials at Delaney Hall in Newark.
Kim had entered the facility to observe conditions firsthand, where detainees have been refusing food to protest what they describe as inadequate medical care and broken air conditioning. When he emerged, he found ICE agents and demonstrators locked in a tense standoff. Kim positioned himself between them, hoping to prevent violence.
"I tried to arrange a situation where people would not get hurt, where there wouldn't be a confrontation," Kim told USA Today. "Unfortunately, ICE just continued on."
What followed was a blur of force. ICE deployed an armored vehicle while armed agents advanced through the crowd. Kim watched as demonstrators were knocked to the ground, then the pepper spray started. "They started shooting at us with pepper balls and using pepper spray," he said.
Video footage showed a volunteer helping Kim outside the facility, pouring water over his face to wash away the chemical irritant. His eyes and throat were still burning hours later when he spoke to reporters that evening.
The escalation had been building since Friday, when activists began camping outside Delaney Hall to demand the facility be shut down. The situation intensified Sunday when word spread that Martin Soto, the detainee who organized the hunger strike, would be transferred to another location. Authorities wanted to move him to Elizabeth, about seven miles away.
Early Monday morning, around 1am, ICE agents cleared the roadway behind the facility, apparently to move vehicles out. Demonstrators blocked the exit. What happened next, according to reports, was officers forcing the crowd back onto sidewalks and into parked cars. At least one person was pepper sprayed; another suffered a leg injury.
Kim, the state's senior senator, had been joined at the facility earlier Monday by Governor Mikie Sherrill and other Democratic officials who came to meet with relatives of detained people. Sherrill and Congressman Rob Menendez left before the violence erupted. Kim stayed.
In a post on social media, Kim blasted ICE's response as counterproductive. "Instead of engaging with me and others about the poor conditions, ICE sent in an armored vehicle and a line of armed agents that only poured gasoline on the fire," he wrote. He called Delaney Hall "a failure" and demanded it be closed.
The Department of Homeland Security offered a different account, framing Monday's events as a clash with lawbreakers. In a statement, officials said "rioters" had blocked law enforcement from leaving the facility and refused orders to clear the area. They maintained that agents used the "minimum amount of force necessary" and denied that anyone was directly struck by pepper balls.
By evening, Soto had been transferred to the Elizabeth contract detention facility. The standoff ended, but the broader fight over immigration enforcement remains unsettled. The Trump administration has been pushing for a $70 billion funding package for ICE and border operations, though Senate Republicans blocked the bill last week over unrelated disputes about the White House budget.
Kim's experience marks another flashpoint for Democratic officials willing to directly challenge the administration's immigration stance. Last June, California Senator Alex Padilla was handcuffed and removed from a press conference in Los Angeles as he attempted to question the homeland security secretary.
Author James Rodriguez: "When a senator gets pepper sprayed at a protest, someone's lost control of the situation, and the real question is whether anyone's willing to take responsibility for it."
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