The Commissioners should stop pretending that immigrant detention is helping the immigrants. It’s not. The county should also stop collaborating with Trump and ICE. Crossing a border in hope for a better life should not be illegal. No one is illegal on stolen land. Read More

The resolution will prove meaningless if the freeholders don’t publicly put pressure on both ICE and County Executive Joe DiVincenzo to comply with the resolution. Comply, as in release them to their families and communities, not transfer them to some other jurisdiction that complains less. And when the pandemic ends, leave them free. Read More

Last Monday Freeholder President Gill publicly stated that he will introduce a non-binding resolution to release all non-violent detainees. We are watching to see if this happens, and if it passes, or whether the Freeholders continue to abdicate their responsibilities, allowing innocent human beings to die while collecting millions from ICE to hold them against their will. Read More

We understand that Joe D cannot release anyone on his own say-so, only ICE has the authority. But there is nothing stopping him or his freeholders from publicly calling on ICE to release the detainees. Read More

"For everyone held captive by ICE, the threat of an outbreak of COVID-19 has been terrifying." Read More

With Coronavirus threatening to devastate vulnerable populations in prisons and jails (where ICE detainees are held in Newark, despite being under technically civil detention), it is a moral imperative that Joe D and the freeholders overcome their lucrative complicity in immigrant detention and publicly demand that ICE release its detainees before catastrophe strikes. Read More

A supposedly progressive Board of Freeholders repeatedly follows the agenda of local politicians who are not accountable to the people who voted for them. Many residents and students have recently protested the zoo expansion, while calls to end the local ICE contracts have been ongoing for many years. Read More

As I enjoy these spaces, which are undoubtedly assets to our community I can’t help but think of the immigrant from Honduras who was arrested by, ICE for outstanding traffic warrants, awaiting deportation in the grimmest industrial site in Essex County. Read More

The zoo’s footprint has doubled in the past ten years to 40 acres including McLoone’s Restaurant and a mini-golf course. Read More

In our current climate crisis and with many students voicing their informed opinion that parading animals in front of a 500 person amphitheater is not the way to educate young people about conservation, residents deserve an answer: when does this stop Read More

Citizens must push hard for good representatives to be added to the Task Force so that it can work as intended: ensuring fair and equitable conditions for all prisoners, detainees, and staff. Read More

Nationwide, immigrant detainees are seldom represented, and they have drastically better outcomes when they are. Read More

A more humane jail is better than a jail in which inmates are sexually assaulted and served rotten food, but this should not be confused with justice. Read More

In short, they don’t need to say out loud what Biden so gracelessly said; they embody it in their actions by holding progressives captive to the Democratic Party and its machines, knowing we won’t vote Republican. Read More

The Essex County Executive, Joe DiVincenzo, and his Chief of Staff, Phil Alagia, don't seem to be taking the Jail Task Force ordinance, or their responsibilities, seriously. Read More

Essex County holds nearly 1,000 ICE detainees, but this was not forced on us by Trump; this was the county’s choice. Read More