New Jersey Man Charged With Kicking and Biting ICE Officers During Delaney Hall Riot

A New Jersey man was arrested yesterday and charged with assaulting federal officers and causing bodily injury during a riot at the Delaney Hall immigration detention center.

The defendant faces charges under statutes that criminalize assault on federal officers and infliction of bodily injury, per the Department of Justice announcement dated May 29, 2026. The case was filed in U.S. District Court in New Jersey.

The single defendant is the only individual named in the charging document released Thursday. The DOJ statement does not specify the exact number of officers assaulted or the precise injuries sustained beyond confirming that bodily injury occurred.

The charges move the case from an internal ICE investigation into formal federal criminal proceedings. Arraignment and pretrial proceedings must now occur in U.S. District Court under the standard timeline set by the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. Conviction on the assault counts can carry sentences of multiple years in federal prison.

Downstream, the prosecution requires the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of New Jersey to present evidence to a grand jury or proceed by information, and obliges the Bureau of Prisons or pretrial services to handle the defendant’s custody status.

Any conviction will also be recorded in federal criminal databases used for future immigration enforcement and background checks. The case forms part of the Justice Department’s effort to prosecute attacks on federal immigration officers at detention facilities.

This is the latest charging document stemming from unrest at Delaney Hall, one of several ICE-contracted facilities in New Jersey that have seen protests and security incidents in recent years. The Department of Justice has previously issued similar announcements after confrontations between detainees, protesters and ICE or contract staff at the site.