When state police blocked families from entering Delaney Hall, the sprawling Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility in Newark, Richard Torres did something the major news outlets were not doing: he picked up the phone.
Torres, director of Radio Jornalera NJ, called the facility directly, confirmed that visitation hours were operating as scheduled, then confronted the officers at the gate until they relented. Within hours, he posted a Spanish-language video to the outlet's Instagram account explaining what had just happened and urging the community to keep pressure on officials.
That single act captures what Radio Jornalera NJ, or Workers Radio NJ in English, has become over the past weeks: the primary source of real-time information for Spanish-speaking immigrant communities in the region as Delaney Hall has descended into conflict, hunger strikes, and police confrontations.
While cable news networks, social media streamers, and right-wing influencers have descended on the industrial site outside Newark, many focusing on the dramatic clash between protesters and law enforcement, Radio Jornalera NJ has maintained a singular focus: documenting conditions inside the detention center and amplifying the voices of the people held there and their families.
The outlet operates through live streams from outside the facility, Instagram posts tracking daily visitation access, and a rotating team of volunteer reporters who file multiple video dispatches daily. It is lean, scrappy, and embedded in the community it serves in a way traditional media outlets rarely are.
"One of the things we do is empower people and build trust around the community," Torres said. "We've been covering deportation, immigration issues since we started."
Asela Perez-Ortiz, the outlet's media production coordinator, was stationed outside Delaney Hall during the hunger and labor strike by dozens of detainees. "At the end of the day, we have to keep in mind we're doing it all for them," she said, referring to the people locked inside.
The outlet traces its roots to 2021, when members of the immigrant community approached Resistencia en Acción, a local advocacy group, with a specific request: they wanted to tell their own stories rather than be used by mainstream journalists extracting narratives for outside consumption. The group launched Radio Jornalera NJ in response, and the model has since expanded to other cities, with independent stations now operating in California, Minnesota, and Washington DC.
Back in New Jersey, the operation has grown to eight regular shows covering topics from migrant worker rights to healthcare to activism. Torres described the volunteers as talented individuals who had long wanted to do journalism or media work but never had the opportunity until Radio Jornalera NJ offered it.
The work carries real risk. On May 31, a volunteer reporter wearing press credentials was arrested by state police during coverage of activity at the detention center. She was released the next day, and advocacy groups are now pressing local officials to drop charges against her and other detainees arrested that day.
Meanwhile, the Department of Homeland Security and Geo Group, the private corporation operating Delaney Hall, have denied that a strike is taking place or that conditions are substandard. New Jersey has filed a lawsuit against Geo Group seeking full access to the facility for the governor.
Throughout the chaos, Radio Jornalera NJ continues publishing multiple videos daily, providing the immigrant communities of New Jersey with something they could not find elsewhere: direct accounts from people with skin in the fight, reporting from the ground rather than from behind a camera rig positioned for maximum confrontation.
Author James Rodriguez: "Torres and his team are doing what local news was supposed to do all along: showing up, asking hard questions, and making sure the people affected have a say in their own story."
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