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Delaney Hall
For eight days, protesters have been outside Delaney Hall, a privately run federal immigration detention facility in Newark, New Jersey, operated by the GEO Group and holding roughly 300 people picked up from communities across the state. The detainees have been on a hunger and work strike since last Friday, alleging inhumane conditions: rotten food, live worms, no toilet paper, inadequate medical care. ICE agents have pepper-sprayed protesters. Journalists have been shoved into the road. A US senator was hit with pepper spray during a congressional oversight visit.
On Thursday night, four detainees pushed through a wall Senator Andy Kim described as “drywall with some mesh inside” and escaped. A major security review is now underway. The same night, nine protesters were arrested. New Jersey Governor Mikie Sherrill, who had been denied entry to the facility earlier in the week, put state police in charge of monitoring protesters after calling the clashes “unsafe” and “unpredictable.” She has called for Delaney Hall to be shut down. State health department officials were denied full access for a health inspection. The city of Newark’s lawsuit against GEO Group, filed in April 2025 alleging the facility opened without required permits, is in mediation, with talks due to conclude by June 15.
The conditions described by elected officials who have gotten inside are specific. Senator Cory Booker visited and confirmed what detainees allege. Senator Kim, immediately after concluding a congressional oversight visit, was hit with pepper spray as he says he was trying to de-escalate. He described what detainees told him: threats of transfer if they continued protesting, cuts to visitation rights as retaliation, food withheld. The Department of Homeland Security has denied all allegations of inhumane conditions and described the detainees as “the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens,” a characterization that applies to a population that includes people whose only legal violation was immigration status.
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin escalated Thursday by threatening to pull Customs and Border Protection agents who process international passengers from Newark Liberty International Airport and redeploy them to control the protests. That would mean fewer officers processing arriving international travelers at one of the busiest airports in the Northeast. Mullin’s stated purpose was suppressing a domestic protest outside a detention facility.
The hunger strike was organized in part by Martín Soto, a detainee. When ICE moved to transfer him, protesters outside blocked the van. Masked ICE agents responded with tear gas, pushed people to the ground, and Soto was transferred anyway to a facility in Elizabeth, New Jersey. He now faces criminal charges for allegedly assaulting an ICE officer during the transfer.
🌍 TRANSLATOR’S NOTE: The BBC reported the detainee escapes. The AP distributed photographs of ICE agents using batons against protesters, a US senator wiping pepper spray from his face, and demonstrators in gas masks forming human chains outside the facility. Those images are circulating internationally in a week when the United States has also threatened to bomb a Gulf ally and resumed strikes on Iran during a ceasefire negotiation.
The specific image that has received international attention is the senator and the pepper spray. A sitting US senator, present on a formal congressional oversight visit at a federal facility, being pepper-sprayed while trying to de-escalate. That image does not require editorial framing to land outside the United States.
🇺🇸 What American readers need to know: A federal detention facility in New Jersey is holding roughly 300 people under conditions that multiple elected officials, after visiting, have confirmed are inhumane. Detainees organized a hunger strike. Their organizer was transferred and now faces criminal charges. Four people broke through a drywall partition and escaped. The government’s response has been to threaten to shut down international customs processing at Newark Airport to suppress the protests. A US senator got pepper-sprayed doing his job. These things happened this week, in New Jersey, in the United States of America.
Sources: ABC7 New York/AP (wire — eight days of protests, Governor Sherrill state police decision, nine arrests Thursday, facility description); WHYY (local — governor denied entry, health inspection blocked, GEO Group lawsuit, June 15 mediation deadline, Mullin airport threat); Democracy Now (US — Martín Soto transfer, van blockade, tear gas, criminal charges, Gabriela Soto and Li Adorno interviews); ABC News/AP (wire — Mullin airport threat confirmed, Booker and Kim visits, DHS denial, seven days of protests context); BBC (UK, public broadcaster — four escapes confirmed, DHS spokesperson, drywall wall description from Kim); Patch/AP (wire — Kim security review statement, hunger strike, Essex County Sheriff response)
Bolivia: Washington’s Hemisphere
Less than six months after his inauguration, Bolivian President Rodrigo Paz is governing a country under siege by its own people. Four weeks of road blockades by miners, teachers, Indigenous groups, and unions have left La Paz effectively cut off. Hospital oxygen reserves have been depleted. Markets have emptied. At least four people had been killed as of late May. Emergency vehicles have been blocked from reaching medical centers. The protests are draining more than $50 million per day from Bolivia’s economy and have stranded roughly 5,000 vehicles on the country’s highways.
The protests began over a law that would have allowed land to be mortgaged, which Indigenous and rural Bolivians feared would accelerate land dispossession. Paz annulled the law on May 13. The protests did not stop. They expanded, absorbing demands for higher wages, fuel subsidies, labor reform, and eventually the president’s resignation. Former President Evo Morales, who governed Bolivia for nearly fourteen years before being ousted in 2019 and now faces an arrest warrant on charges of sexually abusing a teenage girl during his presidency, has mobilized his supporters for a 190-kilometer march on La Paz and is demanding Paz step down.
On Wednesday, Paz enacted a law restoring the executive’s authority to deploy the military in the streets, repealing a 2020 restriction that had required congressional approval. The armed forces are now authorized to conduct joint operations with the national police. Paz also moved to reshuffle his cabinet. Neither step has reduced the pressure on the streets.
The United States has taken a clear position. Secretary of State Marco Rubio posted publicly: “Let there be no mistake: the United States stands squarely in support of Bolivia’s legitimate constitutional government. We will not allow criminals and drug traffickers to overthrow democratically elected leaders in our hemisphere.” On May 19, Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau said at the Council of the Americas assembly in Washington: “This is a coup that is underway.” He claimed he had directly told the leaders of Brazil and Colombia to support Paz. A joint statement issued through the Shield of the Americas, Trump’s hemispheric security alliance launched at Trump Doral in March 2026, endorsed by Argentina, Chile, and more than ten other countries, condemned the protests as destabilization of a democratic government.
Argentina’s President Javier Milei provided military equipment to Bolivia’s government. Bolivia expelled Colombia’s ambassador after President Gustavo Petro described the protests as a “popular insurrection.” The region has split along familiar lines: the right-leaning governments backing Paz, the left-leaning ones backing the protesters.
Paz is an economist and former mayor who ran on a “capitalism for all” platform and won with 54.5 percent of the vote last October. He is Bolivia’s first president after nearly two decades of MAS rule. He took power with strong ties to Washington and explicit Trump administration support. He is now contemplating deploying soldiers against the people who voted for him, with US backing, in a country where the military’s last political intervention ended with international condemnation.
🌍 TRANSLATOR’S NOTE: Latin American press is covering Bolivia primarily as an economic story with political consequences, not as a coup attempt. The gap between Rubio calling the protesters “criminals and drug traffickers” and what reporters on the ground in La Paz are documenting, miners, teachers, Indigenous communities, union members, has been noted explicitly across regional Latin American outlets. Al Jazeera’s coverage of the protests has given significant space to the economic grievances: a 20 percent inflation rate, fuel shortages, a currency crisis inherited from the previous government, a population that elected Paz to fix those problems and is now watching him struggle to do so six months in. Washington calls it a coup attempt driven by criminals and drug traffickers. The streets of La Paz tell a different story.
The Shield of the Americas angle matters beyond Bolivia. The joint statement issued in Paz’s defense is the first significant activation of Trump’s hemispheric security architecture in a domestic political crisis in a member state. What it establishes is that Washington and its regional allies will treat organized worker and Indigenous protests as security threats when those protests challenge a US-aligned government. That precedent will be watched closely across a region where austerity, inequality, and political instability are not going away.
🇺🇸 What American readers need to know: The Trump administration has labeled Bolivian miners, teachers, and Indigenous protesters “criminals and drug traffickers” and activated its regional security alliance to back a government contemplating military deployment against its own citizens. Rubio said this on the same week he was negotiating a deal with Iran, managing a crisis in Lebanon, and watching Russian drones hit NATO buildings. The deputy secretary of state claimed he ordered the leaders of Brazil and Colombia what to do regarding another country’s domestic crisis. Bolivia is a country the size of Texas and California combined, rich in lithium, tin, and natural gas, with a history of US intervention that its population has not forgotten.
Sources: NPR/AP (wire — economic conditions, death toll, $50 million daily loss, vehicle stranding, hospital oxygen, Morales march); Al Jazeera (Qatar, state-funded/editorially independent — cabinet reshuffle, miners/dynamite clashes, Morales arrest warrant, MAS political history, two dimensions framing); UPI (wire — military deployment law enacted, Eva Copa Law repeal, Shield of the Americas joint statement); Al Jazeera/AFP (wire — Rubio “criminals and drug traffickers” post, “stands squarely” quote, Colombia ambassador expelled); UPI (wire — Morales US accusation, lithium history, Rubio quote context); Cuba Headlines/State Dept (Shield of the Americas statement, member country list, Landau Council of Americas quote, Paz biographical detail); ABC News/AP (wire — five-things context, Paz inauguration, early optimism, emergency law)
The MoU: Still Unsigned
Vice President JD Vance confirmed Friday the administration is “very close” to a deal with Iran. One sticking point, he said, is that Trump wants Iran to surrender its enriched uranium, which may not end up happening.
That sentence from Vance contains the entire status of the negotiations. The MoU has been “close” since Tuesday. Tasnim, the semi-official Iranian agency aligned with the IRGC, said Thursday that no text had been finalized and the public would be notified when it was. Bessent’s conditions stated Thursday — no sanctions relief until the strait opens, full uranium surrender required, nuclear program abandoned — are harder than what the agreed framework describes. Iran’s frozen assets remain unresolved. The IRGC has been shooting at ships and aircraft in the strait during the negotiations.
Brent crude is at $91.18. Gas is $4.39. The market still believes a deal is coming.
🇺🇸 What American readers need to know: Vance says close. Tasnim says not finalized. The uranium is the sticking point. The prices above are the market’s best guess at when this resolves. Readers who want the full picture should read this week’s coverage, which we have linked in our archive.
Sources: Reason/AP (wire — Vance “very close,” uranium sticking point); Al Jazeera (Qatar, state-funded/editorially independent — full MoU framework summary, Tasnim denial, framework terms)
Numbers at Publication
🇮🇷 Iran: 3,468 killed, 26,500+ injured (Iran Health Ministry via Al Jazeera tracker, May 20)
🇱🇧 Lebanon: 3,324 killed (Al Jazeera live blog, May 28) 🇮🇱 Israel: 26 killed, 7,791 injured (Al Jazeera tracker, May 20)
🇵🇸 Palestine: 4 killed (Al Jazeera tracker, May 20 — does not reflect ongoing strikes; see this morning’s Gaza report)
🇸🇾 Syria: 4 killed (Al Jazeera tracker, May 20)
🌍 Gulf states / Iraq: 146 killed in Iran-attributed attacks (Al Jazeera tracker, May 20)
🇺🇸 US military: 13 killed, 381 injured (Al Jazeera tracker, May 20)
🛢️ Brent crude: $91.18/barrel (OilPrice.com, Friday evening)
⛽ US national gas average: $4.39/gallon (AAA, confirmed this session)
Sourcing note: All war casualty figures sourced to Al Jazeera live tracker, last updated May 20, 2026 at 08:45 GMT, except Lebanon which is updated to May 28 via Al Jazeera live blog. Methodology differs between countries; figures should not be treated as directly comparable.
“Whenever the people are well informed, they can be trusted with their own government.” — Thomas Jefferson, 1789
