The Fight to Save America - Read by Eunice Wong

This article is read by Eunice Wong. You can find her work at www.eunicewong.actor.Text originally published June 8, 2026.The Chris Hedges Report is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Full Text: NEWARK, N.J. — The worst is not the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and private contractors, wielding baseball bats and batons, who flood the parking lot at the end of their shifts and unleash on protesters outside the gates the sadism practiced on those incarcerated inside Delaney Hall.The worst is not the tear gas, the tasers, the pepper spray or the dozens of arrests.The worst is not the beatings and the riot shields, raised above the heads of New Jersey State Police and Newark police and brought down swiftly on bodies, leaving severe lacerations.The worst is watching the children.The ones heaving and sobbing as they leave Delaney Hall, saying goodbye to their mothers, fathers, sisters or brothers who took them to school, who cheered them on at their soccer games, who told them they are beautiful and talented, who woke up before dawn to work menial jobs so they could have a future, who love them in a world where love is a diminishing commodity.I am seated against a cyclone fence a block from Delaney Hall, New Jersey’s largest ICE jail, with a protester who goes by the name of Basher. He is 41. He has a thick black beard. His nails are dirty. His hands are scarred from clashing with police. His head is wrapped in a green keffiyeh. The stench of the sprawling Passaic Valley Sewerage Commission treatment plant across the street saturates the air. When it comes to the children, the ones ripped from their parents by a nation that is institutionalizing cruelty, even Basher must catch his breath and stop. The scenes are too much to bear.The savagery at Delaney Hall is the warm-up act. The goons, the ones who attack those demonized on the inside of the ICE jail and those demonized on the streets outside of it, are in training for the rest of us. Delaney Hall, run by a private prison company — The GEO Group — is the template for a world where we will be stripped of our rights; routinely jailed and tortured; denied adequate medical care; fed rancid, expired and moldy food infested with worms and maggots; forced to drink contaminated water and breathe polluted air; and work for poverty wages — in the case of those inside Delaney Hall, a dollar a day.Some 300 of the roughly 600 people detained at Delaney Hall — which includes teenagers, the elderly and pregnant women — began a hunger and labor strike on May 22.ICE and GEO Group guards reacted as you would expect. They beat the strikers. They seal vents and toss tear gas and pepper spray into cells. They place suspected leaders of the strike in handcuffs and force them out of the facility to unknown locations, or isolate them, in “punishment units.” They manipulate the heating and cooling systems so prisoners endure extreme heat or cold. They cut telephone and internet access and suspend visitation rights. They sexually harass women.On May 31, 56 of those held inside Delaney Hall issued their fourth public letter. It was handwritten in Spanish on ruled paper:“The conditions in this prison are not fit for human beings over such a long period of time: medical neglect, water unfit for consumption, food that is past its expiration date and in poor condition, bathrooms that are unusable, and ventilation systems that have never been maintained and because of this, we are constantly sick,” the latest letter reads. “We demand freedom, a fair trial, and for our rights to be respected. S.O.S.”On July 24, last year, at around 6:45 a.m., ICE vehicles blocked a van carrying 15 Guatemalan workers, three blocks from my house. I went to see the men at the ICE jail in Elizabeth, New Jersey, because I speak Spanish and because their families, terrified of being targeted, could not. The men told me they were threatened with lengthy prison sentences, followed by certain deportation, if they did not sign papers agreeing to their immediate deportation. They signed. It was my job to inform their families they would not be coming home.A Guardian analysis of government records found that during the first seven months of Trump’s second term, the parents of at least 27,000 children — 12,000 of whom had U.S. citizenship — were arrested.These men were my neighbors. Their children attend high school with my children. The kidnapping of parents — often at work or at immigration hearings and ICE check-in appointments — not only traumatizes the children of these families, but the entire community. Every child in the high school wonders if their parents will also one day be seized and disappear. Every child wonders how this cruelty can be inflicted on their friends. Every child wonders what kind of country we live in.The state and the media organs that act as its echo chamber are doing their best to convince the public that those locked up in Delaney Hall are “criminals,” “the worst of the worst.”But a review of ICE data by Austin Kocher — an assistant research professor at Syracuse University and an immigration data and policy expert — exposes the lie.Kocher found that 88 percent of immigrants detained at Delaney Hall have no criminal conviction and more than 70 percent have no criminal history. Those with criminal convictions almost universally committed low-level offenses.The rogue paramilitary forces that pour daily out of the gates of Delaney Hall are unaccountable. They ignore the law. They are the Satanic foundation of our emergent police state. The terror they inflict on those in this small patch of Newark will soon be inflicted on all of us.New Jersey Senator Andy Kim — who was pepper-sprayed outside Delaney Hall by ICE agents — and Governor Mikie Sherrill were denied entry into the facility. Kim, after an appeal to the Director of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin, was eventually given a lightning tour, but forbidden to speak to any detainees. City and state health inspectors have also been blocked from fully accessing the ICE jail.The message is clear: We will carry out any abuse with immunity.On Saturday afternoon, after about a dozen protestors blocked cars from driving out of the facility, ICE agents, wearing combat gear and face coverings, charged the protesters with pepper-ball guns, mace and tasers.“Move back! Get back!” they shouted as they unleashed clouds of pepper spray.Cars leaving the facility struck at least one protester.By around 10:00 p.m., some 100 protestors had set up a barricade of barrels filled with sand to block the facility’s exits and entrances. The blockade saw a huge influx of ICE agents, GEO Group guards and Newark police push the protestors several hundred yards down the street.Police announced a ban on protesters wearing protective gear, including respirators and goggles, although Delaney Hall is located in an industrial area with extensive air and water contamination known as “Chemical Corridor.”The battle at Delaney Hall is not over. It is a battle not only for justice, for the rights of our neighbors, for a world where all are treated with dignity and respect, for children who should never be separated from their fathers and mothers, but a battle to save our country from galloping fascism.Join it now.Soon it may be too late.Thanks for reading The Chris Hedges Report! This post is public so feel free to share it.Photos TOPSHOT-PALESTINIAN-ISRAEL-CONFLICTTOPSHOT - A man takes cover behind a column as an explosion propagates smoke and dust during an Israeli strike which reportedly targeted a school in the Zeitoun district on the outskirts of Gaza City, on September 1, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas group. (Photo by Omar AL-QATTAA / AFP) (Photo by OMAR AL-QATTAA/AFP via Getty Images)Demonstrators face riot police during a protest against theNAPLES, CAMPANIA, ITALY - 2025/10/02: Demonstrators face riot police during a protest against the intervention of the Israeli navy, which arrested the crews of the Global Sumud Flotilla that was heading towards the Gaza Strip. (Photo by Salvatore Laporta/KONTROLAB/LightRocket via Getty Images)Fourth Anniversary of Gaza Freedom Flotilla(AUSTRALIA OUT) Men pray in front of the Turkish ship, MV Mavi Marmara, which is docked in the Port of Istanbul, Turkey, on the fourth anniversary of the Gaza flotilla raid, May 31, 2014. The MV Mavi Marmara was one of six civilian ships carrying supplies to the people of Gaza in May 2010. Israeli commandos boarded the vessel at sea, killing ten passengers and injuring many more.(Photo by Kate Geraghty/The Sydney Morning Herald/Fairfax Media via Getty Images via Getty Images).‘Freedom Flotilla’ And Greta Thunberg Prepare To Depart Italy For GazaCATANIA, ITALY - JUNE 01: Greta Thunberg with part of the crew of the ship Madleen, shortly before departure for Gaza, during the press conference in San Giovanni Li Cuti on June 01, 2025 in Catania, Italy. (Photo by Fabrizio Villa/Getty Images)Dozens of ships set sail in the Mediterranean to break Israel’s blockade and show solidarity with PalestineBARCELONA, SPAIN - AUGUST 31: Swedish activist Greta Thunberg boards on a ship of the Global Sumud Flotilla as ships set sail from Barcelona, Spain, heading towards Gaza on August 31, 2025. 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AFP PHOTO/POOL/URIEL SINAI (Photo by URIEL SINAI / POOL / AFP) (Photo by URIEL SINAI/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)TOPSHOT-ISRAEL-PALESTINIAN-CONFLICT-FLOTILLATOPSHOT - Security personnel escort Brazilian activist Thiago Avila to a court in Ashkelon on May 3, 2026. (Photo by Ilia YEFIMOVICH / AFP via Getty Images)ISRAEL-PALESTINIAN-CONFLICT-FLOTILLASpanish activist Saif Abu Keshek arrives at a court in Ashkelon on May 3, 2026. Two foreign activists from a Gaza-bound flotilla who were brought to Israel for interrogation appeared before an Israeli court on May 3, a rights group defending them told AFP. (Photo by Ilia YEFIMOVICH / AFP via Getty Images)Israel-Hamas War: Gaza Death Toll Surpasses 20,000 As Famine LoomsRAFAH, GAZA - DECEMBER 28: Citizens queue for food that is cooked in large pots and distributed for free during war-time on December 28, 2023 in Rafah, Gaza. (Photo by Ahmad Hasaballah/Getty Images)TOPSHOT-ISRAEL-PALESTINIAN-CONFLICTTOPSHOT - Israeli soldiers transfer Palestinian men arrested during a military raid on Jenin, near the Muqeibila crossing on the border with the occupied-West Bank, on January 22, 2025. Gunfire and explosions rocked the Jenin area of the occupied West Bank on January 22, an AFP journalist reported, as the Israeli military kept up a large-scale raid for a second day. (Photo by GIL COHEN-MAGEN / AFP) (Photo by GIL COHEN-MAGEN/AFP via Getty Images)Palestinian Prisoners Start Hunger Strike In Israeli JailsHADARIM PRISON, ISRAEL - AUGUST 15: (ISRAEL OUT) Palestinian security prisoners stand at the bars of their jail cells at the start of their hunger striket Hadarim Prison August 15, 2004 near Tel Aviv, Israel. (Photo by Uriel Sinai/Getty Images)PALESTINIAN-ISRAEL-CONFLICT-DETAINEESPeople lift placards bearing portraits of Palestinians currently detained by Israel, including the director of the Kamal Adwan Hospital in Gaza Hussam Abu Safiya, during a protest in solidarity with them in Ramallah city in the occupied West Bank on January 14, 2025. (Photo by Zain JAAFAR / AFP) (Photo by ZAIN JAAFAR/AFP via Getty Images)TOPSHOT-MIDEAST-ISRAEL-PALESTINIAN-BARGHUTITOPSHOT - Hand cuffed and flashing the ‘V’-sign, Marwan Barghuti the leader of Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement in the West Bank is flanked by Israeli policemen as he is led to a police vehicle 29 September 2003 on his way back to jail, after appearing before a Tel Aviv court. (Photo by TAL COHEN / AFP) (Photo by TAL COHEN/AFP via Getty Images)Activist Flotilla Departs For Gaza From VeniceVENICE, ITALY - APRIL 18: A “Spring Mission” sailboat passes near St. Mark’s Square as it departs to join the Global Sumud Flotilla’s “Spring Mission 2026” on April 18, 2026, in Venice, Italy. (Photo by Stefano Mazzola/Getty Images)A protestor holds up a placard with Bezalel Smotrich andTEL AVIV, ISRAEL - 2024/08/10: A protestor holds up a placard with Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir strangle PM Benjamin Netanyahu with a yellow ribbon that says: ‘Senior political figures’ during the rally. Thousands of Israelis demonstrated with the hostage’s families against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, demanding an immediate hostage deal and ceasefire - as Israel awaits the Iranian and Hezbollah attack. (Photo by Matan Golan/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)Right-Wing Activists And Politicians Hold Conference On Building Jewish Settlements In Gaza StripJERUSALEM, ISRAEL - JANUARY 28: Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir speaks during a convention calling for Israel to resettle Gaza Strip and the northern part of the West Bank at the International Convention Center on January 28, 2024 in Jerusalem, Israel. (Photo by Amir Levy/Getty Images)PALESTINIAN-ISRAEL-CONFLICT-GAZAA Palestinian man waits on a street near a concrete block (back) marking the “Yellow Line” drawn by the Israeli military in Bureij, central Gaza Strip, on November 4, 2025. Under a US-brokered ceasefire, Israeli forces have withdrawn to a “Yellow Line”, leaving them in control of around half of Gaza, and the United States has spoken of reconstruction aid in the area under Israeli control. (Photo by Bashar Taleb / AFP) (Photo by BASHAR TALEB/AFP via Getty Images)ICE Continues To Make Arrests At New York City Immigration CourtNEW YORK, NEW YORK - JUNE 4: A woman pleads with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers not to detain her because she has a 15 year old son at home, as she leaves her scheduled court appearance at Federal immigration court, June 4, 2025, at 26 Federal Plaza in New York City, New York. (Photo by Andrew Lichtenstein/Corbis via Getty Images) This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit chrishedges.substack.com/subscribe