NO OTHER OUTLET has covered Trump’s fascism more ON THE GROUND—including covering ICE terror in LA, NYC, FL, D.C., Chicago, Charlotte, and Minneapolis—than Status Coup. This reporting is expensive and we’re INDEPENDENTLY funded. Please support us for as low as $5/month.
A drum circle filled with solidarity protesters shined as the only light in front of the towering darkness in the background.
On May 2, I went to cover a gathering in front of the mammoth Delaney Hall ICE prison in Newark, NJ. You may remember it from 2025—when Newark Mayor Ras Baraka was shockingly arrested for the crime of standing outside demanding the ability to go inside to inspect.
Over the weekend, activists ranging from retired Boomers to spouses of prisoners gathered to commemorate the one-year anniversary of the opening of the 1,000+ bed prison—which saw a Haitian immigrant die in December just one day after being imprisoned.
“They treat people here like they’re animals,” Gabriela Soto, the wife of prisoner Martin, told me (watch part of our interview above). Gabriela, who is a U.S. citizen who first came to America from Peru over 20 years ago, told me her husband Martin, who’s been imprisoned inside Delaney Hall for four months, was abducted by while on a diaper run for their infant.
She described a torture camp which grows more sadistic based on the whims and mood of unqualified guards.
“If the guard is not in a good mood, [prisoners] don’t get medication, they don’t go to the infirmary, the food there is horrible,” she said, explaining that the food inside is either uncooked or expired (her husband has lost 30 pounds inside in just four months).
“They don’t feed them at all,” she said. “They get sick, they start throwing up, they have headaches—it’s really bad in there.”
Soto explained that on top of being malnourished and medically untreated, her husband and other prisoners have inhaled dangerous gas fumes, don’t get regular recreation time outside, and are routinely kept awake all night.
***A judge has issued a $50,000 bond to release Gabriela’s husband. Pitch in if you can to her GoFundMe**
Like thousands of others spouses around the country, she is also on 24/7 pins and needles—worrying that her husband has been moved or deported.
“When they don’t call their family members for 24 hours, they start panicking,” she said. If Martin doesn’t check in with her in the morning and night, she feels like she is “having a heart attack.”
And how does she talk to her husband twice a day?
Only if she pays.
She’s been spending nearly $200 a week pouring money into a phone account to speak with Martin; one of the many scams enriching GEO Group, the for-profit prison operator that owns Delaney Hall and 90 other prisons in America and abroad. The controversial private prison contractor made $254.4 million in profit in 2025—a staggering 695 percentage increase in profit compared to 2024 (thanks to landing ICE prison contracts under the Trump regime).
“It’s really expensive to deposit money to him all the time so that he can call,” she said. On top of worrying about her husband, she is working her full-time job and caring for her cancer-stricken mother.
Deborah Gomez’s anguish began before her husband Edgar was abducted by ICE over a month ago. “I have been a target,” she explained, noting that she had been surveilled by local ICE agents and pulled over multiple times due to her activism with New Jersey immigration rights groups.
“They took a metal crow bar and broke the windows to my attorney’s vehicle,” she told me about once incident with ICE agents (watch below).
In another sickening exchange, Gomez recounted an ICE agent threatening to sexually assault her.
“I had officers telling me they should put their dicks in my mouth,” she said, calling it disgusting that federal agents are going around threatening women in front of their children (she reported the incident to DHS and the NJ Attorney General’s Office).
Her husband, Edgar Gomez, was the sole breadwinner as Deborah raised their three kids—one of whom, their 6-year-old, is on life support due to a seizure condition.
“I cry every night, it is hard, especially knowing that my son can be triggered by getting upset—the seizure condition he has; either he gets too excited or he gets upset and it triggers him to have seizures.”
In 2016, Deborah petitioned for a green card for her husband— who’s been in America for 25 years. He had no criminal history and was a hands-on father before being taken by ICE.
Now he’s being held captive in Delaney Hall—with his future unclear.
Her husband, a diabetic, has had his blood sugar drastically fluctuate inside the prison. Despite his imprisonment, Gomez says he is trying to remain hopeful.
“He is trying to stay strong for his children.”
Gomez called it crazy that America is spending $2 billion dollars a day to wage war while there are millions of children in need—like her seizure-stricken son.
“I’m disgusted, there’s no trust in these federal agencies. I fear for my life. I don’t know if they’re capable of shooting me or harm me or my children or my family.”
And as these abuses escalate, the abusers just took action to further bury their crimes: the Trump administration just shuttered its watchdog office overseeing ICE prison abuses.
WATCH MY FULL REPORT FROM DELANEY HALL ICE PRISON ON MAY 2
