I normally volunteer and stand public witness on Sunday mornings at Delaney Hall, the private for profit immigration detention center run by the GEO Corporation under a 15 year $1Billion government contract. This weekend however I was away until Sunday afternoon attending an intercongregational formation weekend with our Candidate. (One of my current roles in community is as Candidate Director. Candidacy is the first stage of initial formation before Novitiate).
Tomorrow is the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. In many Latin American countries, such as Columbia, tonight is celebrated as Dia de Las Velitas. We held a beautiful prayer this evening at Delaney Hall, reading the names of 16 of the friends who have been released and united with their loved ones. We lit candles in their honor and prayed in Advent Hope that all families will be reunited. You can see a family with small children in the background of this photo, speaking to the guard to get on the list for visitors. This is real life.
When I told our Candidate that I was going to Delaney Hall this cold December evening, she said she wanted to come with me. We handed out pasta and hot chocolate and a tshirt to a woman who the guards decided violated the (arbitrary) dress code, among other things. It is a simple ministry of presence in the company of good people.
There were lots of volunteers this evening, so at one point we decided to stand by the table with the candles to pray. The two of us prayed the Sorrowful Rosary using this guide from CLINIC with stories of immigrants.
As we were praying a family with a grandmother, mother and little girl walked by on their way to talk to the guard. The mother stopped, looked at the table full of candles, and said “Dia de las Velitas.” They paused and little candles. It was a powerful moment I will not soon forget
Mary, Mother of Jesus, you who experienced being a refugee, you who were denied room in the inn, pray for these Holy Families. Comfort them and intercede on their behalf with your son Jesus that justice will prevail, that their loved ones will be treated with human dignity, and that they will be reunited with their families. Amen.
Yesterday evening I joined a group of volunteers outside Delaney Hall, the for profit immigrant detention center located in an industrial area in Newark, New Jersey. We provided support to families visiting their detained loved ones on this national holiday.
There was the mother bringing her 2 day old to meet the child’s father for the very first time. Yes 2 days after giving birth! Such a tiny baby.
There were the elementary school age kids whose eyes lit up when I showed them a selection of donated Hot Wheels cars, still in the packaging, and said they could choose which one they wanted to take home.
There was the teenager who didn’t want to leave home on a cold Thanksgiving night and the Mom who made him come so he could see his Dad on this family holiday.
There was the family in tears as they were turned away by the guard because he decided (arbitrarily) that they didn’t arrive early enough, even though they were there half an hour before the assigned visiting hour for their loved one’s unit.
There were many others. Otherwise ordinary families forced by our unjust immigration system to stand on an active driveway at night in the cold in order to see their loved one.
It felt wrong somehow to wish them Happy Thanksgiving. But they wished us Happy Thanksgiving as we passed out slices of pizza and plastic red cups filled with pasta, warm food to feed their bodies and help them stay warm. They thanked us as we handed out blankets, hats, gloves, and scarves for them to use while they waited outside the gates for up to an hour in order to ensure the guard put them on the list of allowed visitors for their loved one’s unit.
GEO Group runs this immigration prison on a 15 year $1Billion tax payer funded contract. Their CEO told shareholders on an earnings call that they expect to earn a $60 million profit this year alone detaining migrants at Delaney Hall.
Yet they choose not to use those profits to provide an indoor waiting area for families visiting loved ones. They recently installed a metal shed with no walls or heat on the active driveway and filled it with cold metal benches. This is insufficient and provides no safety or real shelter from the elements as we move into winter.
Federal Holidays are supposed to be full visiting days and follow the weekend daytime schedule. In fact the guards announced to visitors last weekend that Thanksgiving Day and the Day after would be all day visiting with one hour visits for each unit. Then on Tuesday a sign was posted that Thanksgiving would follow the regular Thursday evening schedule. No mention of Friday. That meant having to wait outside in the dark for a half hour visit. We wondered if they were understaffed on the holiday. In any case it led to confusion and hardship for the families.
One family I have gotten to know did not have to wait outside this Thanksgiving. After four months of detention because of his irregular status, their loved one finally was released on bond the night before Thanksgiving. His wife wrote me:
“Yes, he was set free last night!!! 🙌 We barely slept last night because we were so happy and relieved. It is so nice having him here and seeing how he is experiencing everything new again. Praise the Lord on this Day of Thanksgiving for all His wonderful blessings and how He heard months of cry’s and prayers and gave us our hearts desire.”
They now face an uphill battle with the courts, but they are reunited and he is safe. He lost a lot of weight in detention due to the conditions and the quality of food provided.
Please pray for all those in detention, 1,000 at Delaney Hall and more than 60,000 nationwide. Pray for their families. Advocate for them to receive due process and humane treatment. We cannot be silent.
(Photo borrowed from Instagram of another volunteer @christinehou. I am not in the photo as it was taken after I left a little early because my feet were so cold!)
Today is the Feast of All Souls, also known as the Day of the Dead.
This morning I celebrated this Feast with immigrant families waiting to visit their detained loved ones outside Delaney Hall, the private for-profit immigrant prison in Newark, NJ. Despite the estimated $60 million annual profit GEO Corporation makes on the operation, they force families to wait outside for hours on an active driveway for a chance to see their loved ones. Thankfully a group of dedicated volunteers are there each visiting day to provide practical support with beverages, food, chairs, blankets, hats, gloves and perhaps most importantly compassion.
In the first reading for today from the Book of Wisdom we hear: “The souls of the just are in the hand of God.” And in the second reading from Romans: “Hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.” Every time I am at Delaney Hall I leave with more hope, even in the face of the intentional cruelty done in the name of my country, because of the goodness of people.
Today one of the families woke up at 5 am to make tamales and Mexican hot chocolate which they brought to share with others families and the faithful volunteers who are there during visiting hours to support the visitors. The family told us they wanted to give to us like we give to them. I will admit this brought tears to my eyes. And I was not the only one. (Plus the tamales and hot chocolate were delicious)
Homemade tamales!
Other volunteers brought toys and art supplies for the kids. And there was even a face painting station. For children whose families have been torn apart and who wait for hours outside a chain link fence topped with concertina wire for a chance to see their detained mom or dad, these simple gestures also give them a chance to be a kid and have some good memories to see them through.
Face painting
Other volunteers set up a colorful altar, an ofrenda, for the Day of the Dead. We remember our loved ones who have gone before, so fitting as an emotional and spiritual support for the families visiting their detained loved ones.
Indeed hope does not disappoint because God’s love is poured out freely into our hearts. We in turn pour this love into the world, especially places and spaces of suffering and oppression.
In the words of the collect from today’s liturgy:
Listen kindly to our prayers, O Lord,
and, as our faith in your Son,
raised from the dead, is deepened,
so may our hope of resurrection for your departed servants
also find new strength.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
I spent yesterday morning with other volunteers at Delaney Hall providing hospitality and solidarity to families visiting loved ones.
I have been recovering from Covid so hadn’t been in a while. As always I found myself inspired by the courage of the families waiting to visit loved ones and the open hearts and dedication of the volunteers. I was also heartbroken. This time it was the children who have to face this cruelty, some born while their fathers have been detained. Others just trying to be a kid in very difficult circumstances. I couldn’t help but think of the words of Jesus in Matthew’s Gospel: “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.”
Last night as I went to bed, I realized that not only was my heart broken 💔, I had over estimated my post covid energy level. While I had planned to attend the prayer service this morning outside Delaney Hall, instead I prayed at home with the Scriptures for todays liturgy, where I found strength for the journey.
The Prophet Habakkuk was reading the signs of injustice in his own time and calling on the people to hold fast in faith. It is one of my all time favorite passages.
“How long, O Lord? I cry for help / but you do not listen! / I cry out to you, “Violence!” / but you do not intervene. / Why do you let me see ruin; / why must I look at misery? / Destruction and violence are before me; / there is strife, and clamorous discord. / Then the Lord answered me and said: / Write down the vision clearly upon the tablets, / so that one can read it readily. / For the vision still has its time, / presses on to fulfillment, and will not disappoint; / if it delays, wait for it, / it will surely come, it will not be late. / The rash one has no integrity; / but the just one, because of his faith, shall live.”
In his letter to Timothy St. Paul tells his community (and us):
“Beloved: I remind you to stir into flame the gift of God that you have through the imposition of my hands. For God did not give us a spirit of cowardice but rather of power and love and self-control. So do not be ashamed of your testimony to our Lord, nor of me, a prisoner for his sake; but bear your share of hardship for the gospel with the strength that comes from God.”
The Gospel from Luke is a call from Jesus to risk the bigness of smallness.
“The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith.” The Lord replied, “If you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you would say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.”
As Pope Leo XIV said when he first stepped out on the balcony at St Peter’s Basilica: “God loves us, God loves you all, and evil will not prevail. “
God of justice, love, and mercy, help us to remember and always to be animated by your love. Give us courage to act in the face of oppression and violations of human dignity. Help us to participate in your creating power of love in ways big and small. Most of all, increase our faith that we may truly believe in You who are bigger than it all. Amen
This morning a small group of us prayed outside the gates of Delaney Hall, the for-profit immigrant prison operated by GEO Group in our name. We gathered outside for a simple prayer service while the first group of families were forced to wait on an active driveway outside the gates for the chance to visit their loved ones detained in this 1,100 bed facility. This was the second week of the Let Us Pray Sunday morning prayer service outside Delaney Hall. Different faith traditions will be leading prayer each week. This week’s prayer was in the Christian Tradition and organized by Pax Christi NJ.
We began singing the song, Please Prepare Me, praying that we might be a sanctuary for the families and their detained loved ones.
We then listened to the word of God: Jeremiah 17: 5-11, Romans 12: 1-12, and Matthew 11:28-30. I was then honored to offer a brief reflection on the scripture readings, which is copied below. It was a beautiful experience of church with friends and strangers praying together that we may find refuge in God and be rooted in love.
Reflection by Susan Francois, CSJP – Delaney Hall (August 31, 2025)
Scripture: Jeremiah 17:5-11, Romans 12:1-2, Matthew 11:28-30
Chances are, right now, you have a piece of paper or a coin in your pocket with the words “In God We Trust” written on it. Our currency has carried these words since President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed a law making “In God We Trust” our official national motto in 1956. The context of this law, of course, was the Cold War. The inclusion of the motto on our nation’s money was seen as a response to the anti-religious stance of the Soviet Union.
We just heard proclaimed words from the prophet Jeremiah, in which he reminded his community to trust in God, not people and not money. His preaching was in a different context. He was worried that the people were placing their trust in the wrong things and turning their hearts from God. He wanted them to understand that actions have consequences. He predicted (correctly as it turns out) that they would be exiled to Babylon.
I can’t help but wonder what he’d make of our context today. Take the last line from the passage from Jeremiah, where he compares a partridge that broods but does not hatch to those who acquire wealth unjustly. In the end, they are just fools. Unjust fools.
The building behind me is operated by GEO Corp under tax-payer funded 15-year $1 Billion contract. GEO’s own press release announcing the deal in February proudly predicted that the “contract is expected to generate in excess of $60 million in annualized revenues for GEO in the first full year of operations.”
And yet, even with all this profit, families with small children, pregnant mothers, and elderly relatives of persons detained behind these walls are not provided with a safe place to wait for the chance to see their loved ones before they are deported. They are required to wait hours in the hot sun—and with this being Labor Day weekend, we know colder and wetter weather is around the corner—without shelter, without access to a bathroom even. I suspect that the prophet Jeremiah would have looked at this private-for-profit prison operation and declared that the GEO shareholders are earning their wealth unjustly.
Let’s shift Jeremiah’s focus from those detaining our migrant brothers and sisters to their faithful loved ones who come to stand at the foot of these gates today. Despite the odds, despite the difficulties, no doubt even in despair, they come each weekend in hope to spend a few moments with their loved ones. “They are like a tree planted beside the waters that stretches out its roots to the stream. It does not fear heat when it comes, its leaves stay green.”
The leaves that sustain them, I suspect, are rooted in love. Love for their husband or wife, son or daughter, mother or father, brother, sister, or friend who are inside these walls. Love for each other. Those of us who have been privileged to volunteer here these past few months have seen so many actions of kindness and love between strangers on this driveway. Volunteer to visitor. Visitor to visitor. Visitor to volunteer.
By our very presence—as visitors, as volunteers—we are refusing to conform to this age of inhumanity where cruelty seems to be the point. We trust in love, and my Christian tradition teaches that God is love. Jesus, God-with-us, love incarnate, invites us in the passage we heard from Matthew’s Gospel to find sanctuary in his love, where we will find rest.
May we be love. May we be loved. May we be sanctuary for one another. May we trust not in the unjust laws of men or the unjust pursuit of profit through human suffering, but in the love of God.
Friends some seriously (and apparently intentionally) inhumane actions are being perpetrated in our name and funded by our tax dollars. This is true on many levels and across the country, but this particular story is local and takes place a 20 minute drive from my house at Delaney Hall, a private for profit prison in an industrial area of Newark, New Jersey where immigrants are detained on behalf of our federal government.
There are many issues with the lack of due process, lies and deception by ICE officials, and violations of established legal protections that have led to up to 1,000 of our immigrant brothers and sisters being detained at Delaney Hall on any given day. Then there are the questions about how these human beings are being treated while in detention. Those are topics for another post.
This story is simply about the arbitrary and constantly changing rules for visitors, rules that are cruel and inhumane. Inhumanity seems to be the point and motivating factor. There is no other explanation to what is happening to the families desperate to see their loved ones one more time before they are deported.
Like the 14 year old US citizen child who was in tears today, trying to get into the detention center with her Aunt. Her mom and dad are both detained at Delaney Hall. They heard that her father might be deported tonight. They were desperate for accurate information regarding the fate of her parents. They could not afford legal assistance. Listening to her story was simply heart breaking.
Or like Bella who was denied the right to visit her daughter Mary during the scheduled 7:30 am visitation time allotted for just 15 visitors each Saturday for the up to 100 female detainees in Mary’s ward. Bella made an early morning trip from her home across the Hudson in New York to get there in time, at great expense. The published visitation rules signed by the Delaney Hall security chief say you may be denied entry if you arrive after the start of visitation hours. She arrived by 7:20 but the guard decided she was too late and told her to come back tomorrow. I tried to advocate for her but to no avail. He kept just saying she should have come earlier and he was within her rights to deny her visitation. Even though they had not yet let the 7:30 visitors inside, and they had not met the limit on the number of allowed visitors. I asked to speak to a supervisor, after identifying myself as a Catholic Sister/clergy, but he refused and again just said he was within his rights to deny her entry.
Bella literally dropped to her knees and opened her arms wide in supplication, calling out to God for mercy. She was in tears, as was I. Powerless in the face of inhumanity and injustice.
These are just two stories of many, just from today during the morning hours at this one detention center. Visitation is no longer allowed during the week at Delaney Hall, only on the weekends and during very limited hours. Family members line up hours early, waiting in the hot sun, often after driving hours to visit, without any guarantee they will be allowed inside. The visitation hours and rules published on the Delaney Hall and ICE websites are incorrect and out-of-date at best, if not intentional misinformation. Each week the guards seem to change the rules or at least apply them inconsistently. The families suffer, as do their loved ones who are waiting for a visit that never comes. Why? I can’t help but think it is by design.
And then this afternoon, after navigating this whole ordeal to set eyes on their loved one for a few minutes, a group of visitors came out to find their vehicles had been ticketed or towed by the Newark Police Department. Because, you see, not only is there not a visitor parking lot at this detention center (operated by tax dollars under a $1 Billion 5 year contract with ICE), there is also not any legal parking on the public city street outside the detention center. There is a public parking lot next door at the Essex County Detention Center, but visitors to the private prison next door are not allowed to park there, although staff apparently are. Again, why? I can’t help but think this inhumanity is by design.
This is not ok. We cannot be silent.
Now for good news. A group of folks organized in mutual aid swiftly organized to help the visitors get their cars out of the impound lot. Others are strategizing how to work with elected officials on a long-term parking solution. Many folks spent time outside Delaney Hall today in solidarity and support of the visitors, providing umbrellas and tents to protect them from the sun while they waited hours outside the gate. Offering coffee and donuts and water. Creating a play area for the children. Making and holding up signs as public witness to say that profiting off of human misery is immoral, that no human being is illegal, and that we are called to love our neighbors. Some of the visitors even brought toys and snacks themselves to share with others. Community at its organic best.
Goodness, in other words, was present even amidst the inhumanity. Love is always stronger than hate.
At the Corner of Susan and St. Joseph 