Atop an empty patch of pavement in Newark, dozens of demonstrators arrived at dawn on Tuesday hoisting cardboard protest signs. In front of them, an armored vehicle rolled up to a cordon of federal agents who carried rifles and metal batons, their bodies concealed beneath the rising sun in helmets, flak vests and balaclavas.
For five days, the two sides have been in a volatile standoff outside Delaney Hall, a federal detention center that has become a symbol of President Trump’s immigration crackdown. A stream of activists have cycled in and out of a parking lot to support what they described as a hunger strike by detainees. For months, the incarcerated migrants have complained to family members and elected officials about rotten food and inadequate medical care. Democratic elected officials have expressed outrage over the migrants’ living conditions.
On Tuesday, emotions were inflamed. Some activists taunted the agents, and one woman sobbed inside a tent. As the day grew hotter, the stench from the nearby Passaic River, fetid from raw sewage, permeated the air.
“Do you ever feel bad for the people inside the facility?” Adam Crai, an activist, asked one of the masked agents.
Rebecca Brunner, 37, volunteers for an organization called the Radical Hospitality Zone that seeks to comfort relatives and friends of people who are in Delaney Hall, which is part of Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s network of detention centers.
“I care what happens to these people and their families,” Ms. Brunner said as her eyes welled with tears. “This whole thing is going to escalate.”
The Department of Homeland Security, which is the parent agency of ICE, dismissed accusations that detainees were being subjected to inhumane living conditions. In an email sent on Tuesday afternoon, the agency said that there was no hunger strike at Delaney Hall “at this time” and urged people who are being detained to self-deport.
“For many illegal aliens, this is the best health care they have received their entire lives,” the Department of Homeland Security said. “ICE has higher detention standards than most U.S. prisons that hold actual U.S. citizens.”
Not long after the federal agency’s email arrived, the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey issued a statement insisting that for days, hundreds of detainees at Delaney Hall participated in a hunger strike to protest mistreatment. The A.C.L.U. of New Jersey said that migrants at other detention centers had engaged in similar acts of resistance.
Some Democratic officials in New Jersey had called for the closure of Delaney Hall since the Trump administration reopened it last year, including Gov. Mikie Sherrill, Senator Andy Kim and Representatives LaMonica McIver, Analilia Mejia, Rob Menendez, Frank Pallone and Nellie Pou.
Cori Herbig, 49, lives in Parsippany and works in government affairs. She periodically joined the protests outside Delaney Hall during the weekend and was among a group of demonstrators who were the target of pepper balls and spray on Monday during a clash with the agents. Senator Kim, who said that he had tried to de-escalate the standoff, was among those affected.
The crowd of protesters has ranged from a few dozen to more than 100, with dozens of federal agents responding.
“I was at the Memorial Day parade in my hometown watching my son march in the marching band, and then I was getting tear-gassed,” Ms. Herbig said. “If they’re doing that to us outside, I can only imagine what’s happening inside where no one is looking.”
The Department of Homeland Security said that no one was hit directly by projectiles on Monday and described the protesters as rioters who had obstructed law enforcement officers from leaving the ICE facility. According to the department, the agents told the protesters to move out of the way at least twice, but the protesters refused. The agents used the minimum amount of force necessary to protect themselves, the public and federal property, the Department of Homeland Security said.
“The First Amendment protects speech and peaceful assembly — not rioting,” the department said. “D.H.S. is taking appropriate and constitutional measures to uphold the rule of law and protect our officers and the public from dangerous rioters.”
Representative Menendez, who spent hours outside Delaney Hall since the protests began on Friday, criticized the federal government’s deportation campaign during a news conference on Tuesday outside the detention facility.
“Why are we holding our neighbors and our community members in this privately run detention center that can’t do anything right?” Mr. Menendez said. “In the last 24 hours, they have tried to shift the focus into what is happening out here, because they want to shift the attention away from all the conditions inside.”
Abdur Yasin, 47, a firefighter from West Orange, N.J., was among the group of demonstrators outside Delaney Hall.
“The conditions in this facility are outrageous,” Mr. Yasin said. “We have to show dignity.”
