“I even made a surprise visit this weekend and walked into the cafeteria and ate the same meal that the detainees around me were eating.”
In an interview with Fox News, border czar Tom Homan revealed that he visited Delaney Hall in Newark, New Jersey over the weekend to eat the food given to the detainees that had sparked outrage leading to the violent protests outside the facility in recent days.
“I went into that facility,” Homan claimed. “I went into the medical. I went to outdoor recreation, indoor recreation. I even made a surprise visit this weekend and walked into the cafeteria and ate the same meal that the detainees around me were eating. I made sure my tray equaled their tray. I had spaghetti and meat sauce. I had beans. I had green beans. I had bread and rolls. I had drinks. I had dessert. The food was good.”
https://twitter.com/TPostMillennial/status/2061833638493167845?s=20
The comments from Homan flies directly in the face of what many Democrats have been purporting about the detention facility, with U.S. Rep. Jerry Nadler claiming the food had maggots and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries claiming in a press release that they had learned that: “At Delaney Hall, we learned of unsanitary living conditions, lack of adequate medical care and unhealthy food.”
Homan also combated assertions that the detainees were carrying out ongoing hunger strikes due to inhumane conditions in the facility. “It's all a false premise,” he said. “There was never a hunger strike... I found out they're ordering food from the commissary and eating in their cells. So there wasn't any abuse.”
A source familiar with the situation told the Daily Wire that the commissary snack store has seen an "increase in sales and detainees maxing out on items they can purchase weekly" amid the hunger strike. Former ICE New York field office deputy director Scott Mechkowski told the outlet, "I’ve seen real hunger strikes during my time as an ICE official, managing detention facilities. What’s happening at Delaney Hall is not a hunger strike. When detainees are buying up Honey Buns and Snickers bars, and those with money are helping others get snacks, that’s not a hunger strike, it’s just a publicity stunt."
Homan also responded to New Jersey Governor Mikie Sherrill’s threats to shut the facility down. “That facility isn't going anywhere. We're going to enforce the law. We're going to detain people.”
Calls to close Delaney Hall have not come only from Mikie Sherrill, with NJ Senator Andy Kim calling for its closure after visiting the center. “What I witnessed and experienced today was shameful,” he wrote on X. “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.”
Homan went on to say that many of the detainees were under federal mandatory detention orders.
This comes as Newark Mayor Ras Baraka claimed that the city will seek to close Delaney Hall over health and safety concerns, according to News Nation.
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