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Hundreds of dangerous illegal migrant criminals have been shipped out of a New Jersey detention center, leaving the controversial ICE facility at just 20% capacity — after four violent detainees escaped last week during an “uprising.”
The 1,000-bed Delaney Hall Detention Center in Newark — the largest of its type on the East Coast — is now holding only roughly 200 migrants, a Homeland Security official told The Post.
The facility has been a lightning rod of controversy, with Newark Mayor and New Jersey gubernatorial candidate Ras Baraka arrested by the feds during a protest at the center last month and four detainees escaping last week during a revolt.
It is unclear exactly how many illegal migrants have been moved out but sources said they are all hardened criminals, including killers and rapists.
The detainees have been taken to other detention centers in Texas and Pennsylvania.
Insiders have largely blamed the private contractor running Delaney Hall — which only reopened in May — for the prison break.
GEO Group needs to properly “ensure security and staffing” and put in place “proper procedures” before they can “repopulate” the massive center, a source said.
“But for now, it’s going to be brought down to lower-level detainees until they get to the bottom of what exactly happened and hold them accountable for where they failed,” the insider said.
ICE awarded GEO Group a 15-year, $1 billion contract to operate the detention center in February.
The detention center had “a large amount” of violent illegal migrant criminals because “Newark is a cesspool of crime” and a sanctuary city, the source groused.
The four illegal migrants who fled the facility were behind bars for assault and burglary charges — and one of the escapees is still on the lam, sources said.
Sources also blamed Baraka, who staged a protest with several Garden State Democratic congresspeople outside Delaney Hall when it opened in May, claiming it did not have the required permits to operate.
“That just speaks to the mayor and his sanctuary policies, and he would rather have criminals out on the streets … You’ve got him leading protests where they’re distracting from the security,” a source said.
“That compromises the security of the facility when you have attention out front from violent, rowdy protesters who are banging on our security gates,” the source added.
Protests have continued at the facility, including one on the day of the prison break.
GEO didn’t immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment.
The four detainees escaped Friday during an “uprising” within the facility and somehow broke through a “drywall with a mesh interior” in a unit that connected to an exterior wall and into the parking lot, New Jersey Sen. Andy Kim said at a news conference.
However, DHS contradicted the claim, stating that there had been no “widespread unrest” on the day the group escaped.
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