BY WALTER ELLIOTT
NEWARK – Authorities who sanction and operate the Delaney Hall Detention Facility, as of Noon, June 17, want the public to pay attention to their desired message rather than the unwanted messages coming from the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement patronized and GEO Group-run prison since June 12.
ICE and the FBI Newark Field Office are asking for the public’s help in finding Andres Felipe Pineda Mogollon, the last of four people who escaped from 451 Doremus Ave. June 12.
Mogollon, 25, is a Columbian native who has ties to Queens, N.Y. A warrant for his arrest was made here in U.S. District Court June 13 on the count of Escape from the Custody of an Institution or Officer. The FBI has posted a $25,000 reward for information leading to his arrest.
Mogollon was arrested “previously on local petty larceny and residential burglary charges,” according to the FBI’s wanted poster and another record said that he had entered the U.S. in 2023 and “overstayed a tourist visa.”
NYPD arrested him April 25 for petit larceny and Union police May 21 for residential burglary, conspiracy thereof and possession of burglary tools. He stands 5-ft., 10-in., weighs 170 lbs. and has black hair and brown eyes.
It is not known whether the capture of the other three were made in part by the $10,000-each reward the FBI had posted until 9 a.m. Tuesday.
Franklin Norberto Bautista-Reyes, 20, was apprehended overnight Sunday-Monday. The Honduran native had been previously arrested by the Wayne Police Department for aggravated assault, attempt to cause bodily injury, making terroristic threats and weapons possession for an unlawful purpose.
John Sebastian Castaneda-Lozada, according to a June 16 Department of Homeland Security release, surrendered to ICE and the FBI in Millville Sunday.
DHS said that Castaneda-Lozada tried to turn himself in to the New Jersey State Police at its Bridgeton station June 13 but “due to their sanctuary policies, NJSP refused to take him into custody because they don’t work with ICE.”
Hammonton police had arrested the Colombian native May 15 for burglary, theft and conspiracy to commit burglary.
Joel Enrique Sandoval-Lopez, was arrested by the FBI, ICE and Passaic police in Passaic Saturday. The Honduran was first arrested by that city’s police Oct. 3, 2024 for unlawful handgun possession and, on Feb. 15, for aggravated assault.
DHS, in its June 16 release, said that Sandoval-Lopez “had kicked and threatened to kill law enforcement officers.”
Sandoval-Lopez, according to DHS, “disturbingly, tried to turn himself into local authorities and was turned away because of the state’s sanctuary policies that prohibit law enforcement from working with ICE.”
ICE told visiting lawmakers that the foursome had gone through a hole in the wall, crossed a parking lot and climbed a fence into the industrial Ironbound neighborhood June 12. DHS had contracted owner GEO to house the detainees for likely deportation since May 15.
It is believed that the quartet escaped while up to 50 detainees tore down a dormitory wall that Thursday night to protest “hours late” dinner service. Those being housed in the 1,196-bed facility had been complaining about late meals and other conditions.
Immigration lawyer Mustafa Cetin said his client told him “it was an outer wall, not very strong, and they were able to push it down.”
Sens. Andy Kim (D-Bordentown) and Rob Menendez (D-Union City) toured the hall June 13 – where they found the wall made of drywall and wire mesh.
“It shows just how shoddy the construction was here, what happens when we are paying billions of dollars for for-profit prisons that are skirting the responsibilities they have and try to pocket as much money as possible,” said Kim in a press conference outside Delaney’s gates that Friday.
The construction problems appeared to confirm Mayor Ras Baraka’s contention that ICE, DHS and GEO should have allowed city and safety code inspectors in to issue a certificate of occupancy prior to its May 15 opening.
“Everything that they told me that, yes, it’s an insecure facility,” added Kim. “They don’t have confidence in this facility, which is why they’re doing a security review. It looks like they’re moving most, if not all, of the detainees out of there while they do a review in that process.”
Cetin’s client said that while he retreated to another room, the foursome had tied bed sheets from their third floor dormitory together to form a ladder. The client said he had also smelled gas.
Would-be visiting relatives told reporters that they were in line when they heard a popping south at 6:30 p.m. They began smelling gas; several began to choke. Delaney Hall’s masters then told them that visitation had been canceled.
Essex County Sheriff Amir Jones said, “When our officers arrived, the situation had already been resolved. At no point did we enter the facility – we remained on the perimeter throughout.”
Sheriffs officers became witnesses to ICE/DHSGEO’s moving out detainees 10:30 p.m. Thursday – and the resulting protestors’ confrontation.
Protestors, as depicted in several video recordings, blocked Delaney’s gates to keep incoming detention buses from entering Where the incoming and Friday morning’s outgoing buses vans were going was unknown; ICE does have a private detention center in Elizabeth.
Federal agents were seen pepper-spraying protestors and journalists.
Cong. LaMonica McIver (D-Newark), on June 13, said that she was monitoring the Delaney developments but ICE had not responded to her information requests.
Whether ICE believes sending such information to a person who the U.S. Department of Justice charged with forcibly impeding and interfering with federal officers as a conflict of interest is not known.
McIver and Baraka went to Delaney Hall May 9 to inspect the facility – but the mayor was arrested once he was allowed past the gates. Acting U.S. Attorney-New Jersey Division Alina Habba had later dropped charges against Baraka – but brought charges against McIver before a federal grand jury.
The Congresswoman is scheduled to be arraigned June 25 on three counts the federal grand jury handed down on June 10. McIver intends to plead not guilty.
“The charges against me are purely political,” said McIver May 19. “They mischaracterize and distort and are meant to criminalize and deter legislative oversight.”
McIver’s arraignment is not the only moving part of the Delaney landscape.
The President Donald J. Trump Administration has ramped up ICE, DHS and related federal law enforcers’ detainee daily arrest quotas from 500 to 1,500 and now 3,000. DHS, in May, said that the facilities they use to detain potential deportees nationwide are at or over capacity.
The daily deportations, apparently, are not for convicted felons anymore. There are accounts across the country where individuals were put into the deportation pipeline – without due process – in infractions as simple as traffic violations.
The Trump Administration has meanwhile rescinded Temporary Protective Status for hundreds of thousands of Afghans, Haitians, Colombians, Venezuelans, Ukrainians among others fleeing oppressive regimes going back to the George W, Bush Administration. Their deportation papers may become their death certificates.
Naturalization green cards and student work visas of otherwise law abiding individuals have been revoked.
Those on the other side of the issue feel that undocumented migrants are a threat, though there is no concrete proof as to who is and who is not dangerous – regardless of citizenship status.
