Newark, NJ May 30– “Inside labor strikes, outside labor strikes, WORLDWIDE labor strikes; strike, strike, strike!” rang from Progressive Labor Party (PLP) bullhorns as over a hundred workers chanted and protested to support the 300 striking workers inside of the racist Delaney Hall ICE Concentration Camp. Their bravery in the face of fascist terror has inspired thousands from New York and New Jersey to stand outside and support the protestors. PLP has been out there with workers supporting the strikers and their families while struggling with workers to see the need for a revolutionary international communist revolution to smash the ICE camps and all prisons around the world.
Migrant workers lead the way
From 2021-2025, workers protested and submitted petitions to former U.S. President Biden to stop for-profit prison corporations like Delaney Hall owners, GEO Group and CoreCivic. Biden agreed to phase out private prison contracts with the Department of Justice yet sided with CoreCivic and GEO when they sued the state of New Jersey for upholding the ban. While Democrats play both sides and gutter racists like Trump hurl anti-immigrant attacks, detainees and their families continue to protest racist abductions, poor medical care, filthy conditions, rotten food, and inhumane treatment by prison guards. Workers inside have reported rotten, worm-riddled food and are left vulnerable to illness. One woman inside the camp had a miscarriage and was only given a warm towel to relieve the pain. This is the disgusting racist and sexist environment our class siblings must endure.
Sparked by increasingly oppressive and deadly conditions, workers inside, representing the multiracial and international working class turned to collective action: launching a hunger and labor strike. They recognized their power under capitalism – the power to withhold our labor and keep the bosses from profiting. This is the leadership our class is looking for. Their bravery in the face of fascist terror has inspired masses of workers from across New Jersey and around the world to pour in to defend the workers vs. the state.
Fascist blows mean workers’ fight grows
As the crowds of supporters grew and news of the strike spread, bosses responded. GEO bosses moved one of the Latin strikers to another center because his pregnant wife was mobilizing large numbers of working class fighters. Days after, the clashes between the working class vs. ICE and the state escalated. As the amount of workers willing to militantly protest and reset the barricades swelled up in numbers, so did the militarized terror of ICE using batons, rubber bullets and military vehicles. Regardless, the steadfastness of the hunger and labor strikers inside Delaney gave those on the outside the determination to cede nothing to the fascist onslaught.
This strong show of working-class unity led Trump’s fascist MAGA base to corral. PLP understood our role as a fighting party and committed to fire up workers against the MAGA racists, ICE, and the police. PL’ers and friends came in with nearly twenty workers and took political leadership of the rally. We led chants and made speeches linking the attack against Black and Brown migrant workers with the struggle against racist profiling of Black workers in Newark and the slave wages they receive in the Essex County Correctional Facility, just 500 feet away. Based on a January 2025 NJ.gov report, 61% of incarcerated workers in the nearby prison are Black men and women.
Black, Latin, Brown, and white PL’ers were the primary speakers and leaders amongst a hundred antiracist workers at the far-right counterprotest. After nights of being tear-gassed and terrorized, leaders of the protest were drained and shaken. PL’ers and friends of the Party came to restore the fight, amplifying the demands of the strikers, while proclaiming that the only thing that will stop racist terror is the destruction of capitalism with communist revolution.
Over 100 copies of CHALLENGE were eagerly received by our class siblings. The chanting and response to our speeches show that workers are open to a revolutionary communist line.
Providing this type of leadership doesn’t happen overnight. For over a year, PLers have worked with volunteers who provided clothes in response to a fascist dress code required to get inside, carpooled with friends to Delaney, shared food and legal support to families, and visited incarcerated workers whose families were afraid of retaliation if they visited. While supporting families of incarcerated workers, we have engaged in political discussions, introduced CHALLENGE to many workers, developed friendships, led art demonstrations that connected Delaney to PLP-led tenant and neighborhood organizing, and brought workers at Delaney to connected struggles in the area. All this prior work defined our confidence and boldness.
Bosses’ politicians—Shut down the class struggle
Just like clockwork, as the struggle sharpened, the liberal politicians tried to pacify the crowd. Congressman Rob Menendez, son of a former senator imprisoned for corruption, was the first to come and insist on “inspecting” the concentration camp. Next came Senator Andy Kim and other politicians. Finally, New Jersey Governor Mikie Sherill and Mayor Ras Baraka did their best good cop-bad cop routine, with Sherill siccing the State police onto the working class fighters in preparation for the MAGA racists. Then, Baraka promised to shut down Delaney Hall on a technicality to clean up Sherill’s sloppy response while simultaneously enforcing a curfew to prevent further fightback.
These politicians divert any budding revolutionary energy and action from the working class. Before politicians arrived, workers were organizing and relying on each other to provide aid and fightback against these racist and sexist conditions. The liberal politicians’ role is to win workers away from this type of organizing and towards “lobbying” and using “legal” means to win the struggle. This leaves workers disorganized and co-opted by bosses through these politicians, who claim they want to help. They only deter us from our primary fight, which is to build a working class communist revolution against capitalism and win us to side with them in imperialist war games between the U.S., China, Russia, and junior bosses who capitulate between the three world powers.
Promises of “sending health inspectors” and countless posts on social media of shutting down the camp yet only a few workers have been able to be released. No overall material change has happened to affect not only Black and Brown migrant workers but the whole working class, as we face capitalism in crisis and rising fascism. Fortunately, many workers are seeing through this illusion. As the transfer of Delaney strikers continues, the crowds outside of the concentration camp have not stopped; new waves of strikers are taking the lead. PL’ers continue to forge relationships between migrant workers in Delaney and Black and Latin antiracist workers in Newark.
From the masses to the masses
As communists, we understand our responsibility to bring revolutionary ideas to the masses. But in situations like Delaney, we also understand how we can take leadership from the workers. By withholding our labor from the bosses, which is the most militant thing one can do short of revolution, the workers inside the Delaney concentration camp are showing other workers how to fight back. We salute these workers and ask you to join us in building a mass communist movement to free them and all of the workers from all the cages of capitalism around the world!
