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Andy Kim, a Democratic senator, said he was pepper sprayed by federal agents on Monday during a protest at a New Jersey detention facility.
Video posted on social media showed Kim receiving help from a volunteer who is seen pouring water in his eyes outside Delaney Hall in Newark, where detainees are reportedly staging a hunger strike against poor conditions and denial of medical care.
Demonstrators clashed with immigration officers who used batons and pepper spray as they attempted to transfer a detainee who organized the hunger strike to another facility.
Kim, a senator for New Jersey, joined the state’s governor, Mikie Sherrill, at the protest to speak with relatives of some of those detained. He told USA Today that the incident in which he was sprayed by a chemical substance came shortly after he had been inside Delaney Hall to see conditions for himself.
He said he emerged to a “standoff” between protesters and agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), who he said had deployed an armored vehicle as a barricade, and that he “kind of lined up in front of them” to try to de-escalate the situation.
“ICE officials told me that they were going to push through the crowd with their vehicle and they wanted to get some vehicles out of there,” Kim said.
“I tried to arrange a situation where people would not get hurt, where there wouldn’t be a confrontation. Unfortunately, ICE just continued on.”
People were “getting tackled and brought to the ground” and ICE “started pushing through with their vehicles” and “started shooting at us with pepper balls and using pepper spray”, he said.
“I tried to do whatever I could standing in the middle to keep people safe.”
In a post on X, Kim said he saw “chaos inside and outside” of the facility.
“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.
“What I witnessed and experienced today was shameful. Delaney Hall is a failure; it’s this administration’s failure. The only way to make this right for our communities is to shut it down and make sure the failures we’ve seen never happen again.”
Demonstrators have been at Delaney Hall since Friday, alleging detainees have been denied fresh food and medical care, and that air conditioning was not working.
Tensions escalated during Sunday when word spread that authorities were planning to move Martin Soto, a detainee who announced the strike, to another facility.
A Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spokesperson said Monday “agitators” had blocked the agency’s initial attempt to move him, but that he had been successfully transferred to the Elizabeth contract detention facility about seven miles away “later in the evening”.
Violence continued through the early hours. At about 1am Monday, ICE agents blocked the roadway along Delaney Hall’s back gate, Gothamist reported, seemingly to let out vehicles. Demonstrators confronted ICE agents and some tried blocking their vehicles.
ICE agents allegedly responded by clearing the area with force, pushing them on to sidewalks and shoving them into parked cars, Gothamist said. The website reported that at least one demonstrator was pepper-sprayed and one suffered a leg injury.
Several other Democratic politicians, including Sherrill and the congressman Rob Menendez, were at the demonstration earlier in the day on Monday, but not present when Kim was sprayed.
The senator told USA Today on Monday night that his eyes and throat were still burning. He said he would continue to fight the “lawlessness and unaccountability perpetuated by the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress”.
DHS in a post on X, blamed “rioters” for the violence.
“No individuals were directly struck by pepper ball projectiles,” the post said.
“On May 25, 2026, rioters obstructed law enforcement from exiting the ICE facility. Officers issued multiple lawful verbal commands for rioters to clear the area. Rioters refused to follow law enforcement commands and continue to obstruct the exit route. Our law enforcement followed their training and used the minimum amount of force necessary to protect themselves, the public, and federal property.
“The First Amendment protects speech and peaceful assembly – not rioting. DHS is taking appropriate and constitutional measures to uphold the rule of law and protect our officers and the public from dangerous rioters.”
Monday’s violence came amid stalled efforts by the Trump administration to pass a $70bn funding measure for ICE and border patrol. Senate Republicans last week derailed the bill, at least temporarily, in a dispute over Donald Trump’s plans for a White House ballroom and the creation of a $1.8bn “anti-weaponization” fund that could enrich January 6 rioters.
Kim, meanwhile, is the latest Democratic senator to have experienced violence for challenging Trump’s immigration policies. In June last year, the California senator Alex Padilla was handcuffed and bundled out of a press conference in Los Angeles as he tried to question Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary at the time.
