Forget the Dickensian tales of deprivation inside the Delaney Hall ICE facility in Newark: inmates are not only well fed and have use of computers and state of the art gym facilities — they a…
Inmates are not only well fed and have use of computers and state-of-the-art gym facilities — they also can do yoga sessions complete with lavender-scented aromatherapy.
When they’re not striking downward dog poses, detainees also have access to “full soccer fields and an excellent gym,” according to Rep. Jeff Van Drew , who toured the facility this week. Rep. Jeff Van Drew said there was yoga and workout facilities at the controversial Delaney Hall detention facility he toured.
The private contractor who runs it has touted yoga classes it offered there.claiming detainees were being served rotten food amid inhumane conditions — a stark contrast to what Van Drew said he actually saw inside the controversial, 1000-bed facility.
“They’ve got a squat machine, they’ve got a machine for bench pressing. Also a fly, reverse fly. Leg machines, all the stuff you have in a real full-service gym,” he said. GEO Reentry Services, an arm of the private company GOP Group which runs this facility and others under $1 billion in government contracts, talked up Delaney’s yoga offerings in a web posting.
The workouts, held in the lecture hall, include “meditation and mindfulness sessions” — and “lavender and tangerine aromatherapy to create a calming and invigorating environment. ” At each session “residents learn about the latest research about the benefits of aromatherapy and meditation at other facilities, including San Quentin, Folsom and Walpole,” in reference to well-known lockups.
“There’s a lot of benefits,” Alexis Giglio, a therapist who helped lead the class several years ago, told The Post. She said she surveyed inmates at Delaney about “how they’re feeling beforehand and how they’re feeling after. ”Van Drew visited Monday following tense street clashes. The state of New Jersey filed suit demanding state health inspectors be allowed in.
A GEO Group spokesperson said the facility offered “fitness and wellness programming focused on physical health and stress reduction,” with dayroom areas providing room for “additional movement and individual exercise. ” It added that “indoor leisure activities include dominoes, card games and special events.
”“Three good hot meals a day … from scrambled eggs to — I mean, all in one meal — to bacon and toast and muffins and fruit,” said Van Drew, who himself often just noshes on pretzels for lunch.
“No worms anywhere — I didn’t see a fly,” Van Drew said. “There’s a whole lot of countries in this world of ours . . . not eating as well as they are.?
that there are “maggots in the food. ” Rep. Adriano Espaillat branded the conditions “inhumane” after his own tour. Detainees told him in brief conversations that they were “good.
” He got to briefly view an infirmary with a few people in it, and “all seemed fine. ” He toured separate sleeping areas for men and women, and both “looked like they were doing great,” he said. The facility previously housed migrants, then became a halfway house, then became the first migrant detention facility of President Trump’s second term in 2025.
“They have a library. They have access to laptops, they have access to iPads,” he said, along with legal references and regular books.
“I wish that every single nursing home. . . people were treated as well as these people were,” said Van Drew, who chaired a prison gang task force when he was in the New Jersey state Senate.
“We have groups of politicians that are using it as a political tool to further their ambitions,” he said, during a week when the state of New Jersey sued demanding “full access” by state health inspectors to Delaney.when he visited a week before Van Drew, claimed the facility was plagued by “unsanitary conditions. I saw food that was spoiled,” including milk that was “completely congealed.
”“Some of my colleagues that have been there more recently, as of yesterday, said that it seemed like that it’s cleaner, that there are some improvements,” he said, adding the bigger problem is detainees who were “stuck there” for eight or 10 months. None of the lawmakers who toured Delaney Hall were allowed to take pictures. But Van Drew is willing to do what it takes to prove conditions are decent. Rep.
Jeff Van Drew said there was yoga and workout facilities at the controversial Delaney Hall detention facility he toured. The private contractor who runs it has touted yoga classes it offered there. Van Drew visited Monday following tense street clashes. The state of New Jersey filed suit demanding state health inspectors be allowed in.
The facility previously housed migrants, then became a halfway house, then became the first migrant detention facility of President Trump's second term in 2025.
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