Let's Have a Prison Break
Lessons From Delaney Hall
There is a concentration camp eleven miles outside of Manhattan called Delaney Hall. 300 people are on a hunger and labor strike there. They have been for over two weeks now. The camp is next to a sewage treatment plant and— when the wind blows— the entire place smells of excrement. It is hell on earth.
These souls are imprisoned inside a squat, grey, pill box building that lays behind a blank grey wall— shaped like a curling hand mid-beckon. Atop the wall are two rows of looping razor wire. In front of the aforementioned wall is a chain link fence, with another two rows of looping razor wire.
It is through this chain link fence that the protestors shout themselves hoarse at the paramilitary men staring back— the ICE agents. The protesters use their plain old voices and megaphones alike. They go in waves until they exhaust themselves and often break down and cry. They are you in another life and so are the people inside those prison walls.
There is a gate that opens at an irregular interval where the Chevy Tahoes with their tinted windows come out carrying employees of GEO group.
GEO Group is a private company— a government contractor— that runs some of the ICE detention facilities in this country. Their employees are the men and women who have sold their souls for, honestly, not that much money (18-22 dollars an hour according to Glassdoor).
These rent-a-gestapos preside over the prisoners. These part-time Nazis take the abuse from the protesters. But, they don’t fear for their safety. Because, of course, they are guarded by the actual gestapo– the ICE agents.
On our side of the chain link fence— on a dirty strip of untended asphalt— we stand alongside the other rag-tag activists. The resistance stands with stooped backs, covered in dust, draped in keffiyehs, wearing N-95 masks and bits of loose cloth to protect themselves from the pepper spray. Many of the people have been there the entire eighteen days since the hunger strike began.
Their mission– our mission– is simple. We will disrupt the flow of these SUV’s carrying the GEO group employees from being able to come and go freely. We will stop business as usual. We will make the corporate sell-outs— the rent-a-nazi’s— lives a living hell.
To be outside Delaney Hall is to witness a sick ritual. A sliding metal gate opens when it comes time for a prisoner transfer or a GEO group employee to go home.
