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  • The son of the Jersey Kebab restaurateurs now faces his own fight to stay in the U.S.

    The son of the Jersey Kebab restaurateurs now faces his own fight to stay in the U.S.

    The son of the Jersey Kebab restaurant owners whose ICE arrests sparked wide condemnation last year now confronts his own battle to stay in the United States.

    Muhammed Emanet, 26, said he is trying to be upbeat as he faces the prospect of being separated from his wife and two sons, ages 4 and 1, all American citizens.

    “I try not to dwell on what I can’t control,” said Emanet, who with his parents operates the popular South Jersey eatery in Collingswood. “I still have a restaurant to run, employees that depend on me, customers, family. I have no other choice but to be positive.”

    Still, his situation feels disorienting, as what seemed to be settled is now newly unsettled.

    In spring the Department of Homeland Security ended its effort to deport Emanet, which seemed to clear the path for him to stay in the U.S. But this month, a different federal immigration agency told him it plans to deny his request for legal permanent residency, what is known as a green card.

    That intended denial carries a 30-day window for Emanet, who came here from Turkey as a boy, to present new or additional evidence to try to change the minds of officials at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

    The government also told him that under a new Trump administration policy, he and other immigrants who are pursuing green cards while living in the U.S. must leave the country and apply from their home nations. Emanet hasn’t been in Turkey since he was 12.

    It’s unclear what will happen when the 30-day deadline expires around July 2.

    Muhammed Emanet greets Elijah Brown, a friend from high school, and his family, at Jersey Kebab in Collingswood on Sunday.

    A little more than a year ago, on Feb. 25, 2025, the small Mediterranean restaurant on Haddon Avenue generated national headlines. Immigration advocates and local leaders railed against what they saw as government injustice, after ICE agents arrested owners Celal Emanet and his wife, Emine.

    Celal Emanet was released after being fitted with an electronic ankle monitor ― later removed ― while his wife was held at an ICE detention center in Elizabeth. She was released on bond after two weeks and a day.

    Their arrests angered a South Jersey community that has long known the couple as caring people who offer free food to the hungry. A GoFundMe campaign to pay family costs and expenses raised $327,000, drawing donations from across the country and beyond, including from Ireland, Germany, and England.

    Now, a community effort to help Muhammed Emanet is driving a new letter-writing campaign, with person after person attesting to his good character and his importance to his neighbors. Hundreds of letters have been signed and gathered to be presented on his behalf, said Lori Leonard, who organized the GoFundMe campaign last year.

    “People are rallying behind Muhammed,” she said.

    State Assemblyman Bill Moen, a Democrat who represents parts of Camden and Gloucester Counties, signed a letter of support. He said on social media that Emanet “has touched the lives of many people throughout South Jersey” as a husband, father, neighbor, friend, and businessperson.

    “While I don’t make immigration decisions,” Moen said, “I do believe decision-makers should understand the character of the people whose lives are affected by those decisions.”

    U.S. Rep. Donald Norcross, a South Jersey Democrat, met with the family soon after Emine Emanet was released from ICE detention, and as her son’s situation emerged this month he stressed in a statement that the family had been long “rooted in our community.”

    In response to questions on Muhammed Emanet’s situation, USCIS said it does not comment on individual immigration cases.

    Being removed to Turkey would likely separate Emanet from his wife and children for years. It also could subject him to reprisals from the Turkish regime, where repressive human-rights conditions under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has driven an exodus.

    Marriage to a U.S. citizen by someone who legally entered the country ― as Emanet did ― has long been a reliable route to an adjustment of status and acquisition of a green card.

    But the Trump policy change announced in May said adjustment should be an “extraordinary” relief, one that depends on government discretion, not merely on having a valid marriage and submitting the proper forms. Failing to depart the U.S. under the policy can by itself be treated as a negative factor in the government’s decision-making.

    Emanet’s immigration lawyer, Joseph Best, said that change in administration policy does not alter the law around eligibility for green cards.

    “If USCIS follows the law,” Best said, “he will attain his lawful permanent resident status just as Congress intended. It is not some fluke or exceptional ‘ask’ here.”

    Discretionary factors, he said, all favor Emanet, who was brought legally to the U.S. as a child, was admitted under a valid visa, and has no criminal history. He is loved in his community, and a key person in a successful family business that is known for helping others, Best said.

    The Jersey Kebab restaurant in Collingswood where Muhammed Emanet works is seen on Sunday, June 21. It offers the same “Free Meal” policy as at the prior location in Haddon Township.

    Celal and Emine Emanet came legally to the United States with two young children in 2008, entering under a religious visa that allowed the father to work at a New Jersey Islamic center.

    They said that they sought green cards before that visa expired in 2013, but that the application has been in government limbo for years.

    In 2021, they founded Jersey Kebab in Haddon Township, and the restaurant recently moved west on Haddon Avenue to a new location in Collingswood.

    The couple’s immigration cases continue. Celal Emanet’s next hearing is scheduled for December, while his wife is to appear in April 2027.

    The family stands among roughly 386,000 Turkish immigrants and people of Turkish ancestry who live in the United States, according to Inquirer computations of U.S. Census figures. That includes about 15,000 in Philadelphia and surrounding suburban Pennsylvania and New Jersey counties.

    Turkey is a longtime U.S. ally, a rectangular land bridge between Europe and Asia that is surrounded by sea on three sides. It is a Muslim nation, a country of tea drinkers, the place where Julius Caesar is said to have immortally proclaimed “Veni, vidi, vici” ― “I came, I saw, I conquered” ― after a decisive battle victory near what is now the modern town of Zile.

    Today, people are leaving the country amid economic instability and political purges, with many trying to get to the United States.

    U.S. government apprehensions of Turkish nationals at the Mexican and Canadian borders surged from 67 in 2020 to more than 15,000 in 2022 and another 15,000-plus in 2023, dropping to 10,500 in 2024. Figures for 2025 were not immediately available.

    President Donald Trump is expected to be in Turkey next month to attend the NATO summit in Ankara.

    Muhammed Emanet works at his family’s restaurant, Jersey Kebab, in Collingswood on Sunday, June 21.

    During Trump’s second term, USCIS has repeatedly paused the processing of applications for all types of immigration benefits, including those for legal permanent residency.

    Last month, the administration announced it would require foreigners who are living in the U.S. and want to obtain green cards to leave the country to do so. The administration said they must now apply in their homelands, a departure from longstanding policy that has sowed confusion and concern.

    For decades, foreign nationals who meet requirements have been able to complete the green-card process in the United States, including those married to U.S. citizens, holders of work and student visas, and refugees and asylum seekers.

    USCIS spokesperson Zach Kahler said in a statement that entering the U.S. on a visa should not be a first step toward obtaining a green card, that tourists and temporary workers are permitted to come here for limited times.

    “Our system is designed for them to leave when their visit is over,” he said.

    Making people leave the country to apply for green cards “reduces the need to find and remove those who decide to slip into the shadows and remain in the U.S. illegally,” he said.

    The administration instructed immigration officers to consider violations of immigration laws, including overstaying a visa, as negative factors in their decision-making.

    Since the uproar, though, USCIS has seemed to walk back the policy, saying it would be implemented on a case-by-case basis. That could mean that some immigrants will be able to stay in the U.S. while they seek green cards.

    Emanet said his immigration case started in 2020, when two plainclothes ICE officers arrived at the family home and said he was in the country illegally.

    In spring, his attorney persuaded an immigration court in Newark to terminate Emanet’s court case ― with no opposition from the DHS Office of the Principal Legal Adviser, the ICE prosecutors. That termination seemed to clear the way for Emanet to adjust his status.

    Instead, on June 3 he received a Notice of Intent to Deny from federal immigration officials, indicating they plan to reject his application to adjust his status. He is not sure what will happen when the 30-day deadline for new information expires.

    “I have children here who need my support ― American citizens who depend on me,” Emanet said. “I thought I was that one, that I did everything exactly how I was supposed to, that I should receive my green card. … It feels like a punch in the gut.”

  • Pennsauken’s Yaxel Lendeborg selected by Golden State Warriors in first round of NBA draft

    Pennsauken’s Yaxel Lendeborg selected by Golden State Warriors in first round of NBA draft

    Yaxel Lendeborg went from playing one varsity season at Pennsauken High School to an NBA lottery pick.

    The 23-year-old forward, who was the Big Ten Player of the Year this season at national champion Michiganwas picked No. 11 by Golden State in the first round on Tuesday night.

    Expressing emotion when hearing his name called at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, Lendeborg embraced his mother, Yissel, in tears.

    He said on the ESPN telecast that “I don’t deserve to be here right now. I didn’t have the traditional path. … I can’t believe it.”

    Yaxel Lendeborg’s untraditional path to becoming an NBA draft pick was fueled by his mother

    Lendeborg thought his basketball career was over in high school. He played in just 11 games his senior year after being academically ineligible to play for his sophomore and junior seasons.

    That was until an opportunity arose — thanks to his mother — at the junior college level with Arizona Western College.

    “That kid got here because of her,” Lendeborg said on the telecast. “She pushed a dream, forced me to go out there and become a man.”

    He spent three seasons at Arizona Western, including a COVID-19 season, where he emerged in his third year, averaging 17.2 points and 13 rebounds. In 2023, he transferred to Alabama-Birmingham and played two seasons with the Blazers.

    Yaxel Lendeborg celebrates with his family after being selected by the Golden State Warriors.

    In his final season at UAB, he averaged 17.7 points and 11.4 rebounds. He also was named the American Conference’s Defensive Player of the Year and an all-conference selection twice.

    Lendeborg, who is 6-foot-9, graduated from UAB in 2025 and entered the transfer portal for his final year of eligibility, which brought him to Michigan. Lendeborg averaged 15.1 points and 6.8 rebounds in 40 games for the Wolverines.

    Tuesday was the second time in Michigan program history that three players were drafted in the first round.

    NBA draft news: Options for the Sixers as pick nears; Giannis trade gives Embiid new title; Pennsauken product heads to Warriors

    Center Aday Mara was picked by the Oklahoma City Thunder at No. 12 after forward Morez Johnson Jr. went ninth overall to the Mavericks, reuniting with his college coach, Dusty May, who on Tuesday was named Dallas’ head coach.

    After he was selected, Lendeborg said his mother told him, “We did it. All the sacrifice we made, we finally accomplished it — you did it.”

    He’ll join a Golden State team that finished 10th in the Western Conference, with a 37-45 record this season.

  • State watchdog finds crowded, dirty conditions at South Jersey prison

    State watchdog finds crowded, dirty conditions at South Jersey prison

    While state and federal lawmakers have blasted the Trump administration for deplorable conditions at Newark migrant jail Delaney Hall, New Jersey’s prisons watchdog has issued a new report detailing overcrowding, intolerable heat, and other deficiencies at Bayside State Prison in Cumberland County.

    Bayside, one of the state’s largest lockups, now houses almost 1,300 people, more than twice its capacity, according to the report released Tuesday by the state corrections ombudsperson’s office. The mixed-security prison, which opened in 1971 in Leesburg, was built to hold 504 people.

    “Turning single-occupancy rooms into double-occupancy rooms … leaves each incarcerated person with significantly less storage and personal space,” the report says.

    The crowding is compounded by the closure of Bayside’s dining hall, which is now used for storage, the report says. That closure forces prisoners to eat all three meals while perched on their beds or foot lockers in their cramped cells, which at 70 square feet are about the size of a parking space.

    Inspectors from the ombudsperson’s office also found old, thin mattresses; birds in the kitchen and housing units; and dirty showers, among other problems.

    The prison lacks air conditioning, so inspectors also encountered stifling heat during summer inspections, with temperatures reaching 94 degrees in cells and shared spaces and 116 degrees in the kitchen, according to the report.

    State health inspectors, who last inspected Bayside in November 2023, also dinged the prison for a “repeat deficiency” for the presence of insects or rodents, the report says.

    The ombudsperson’s office recommended that Department of Corrections officials allow people to eat meals outside their cells in a courtyard area or day rooms if they cannot reopen the dining hall, and to improve cleaning of kitchen equipment and showers, among other things.

    Officials have tried to improve some problems, such as replacing mattresses and exhaust fans and vents in shower areas, as well as putting up barriers to keep out birds, the report says.

    Reopening the dining hall, which has been closed since 1997, is “not logistically feasible” because of cost, staffing, and security concerns, the department said in a response to the report. They said they won’t move meals to common areas, also citing security reasons.

    This story originally appeared on New Jersey Monitor.

  • Philly has the cheapest office space of any Northeast city, report says

    Philly has the cheapest office space of any Northeast city, report says

    In the post-pandemic hybrid-work environment, Philadelphia office space remains cheaper than most other major metro areas, according to a new report from the online real estate platform Commercial Cafe.

    Asking rents for Philly offices were $31.26 per square foot on average as of May, the report found. That makes Philadelphia the only major market in the Northeast below the national average of $33.61 per square foot.

    Relative to other major U.S. markets, only Chicago, Houston, and Phoenix recorded lower average asking rents.

    Elsewhere in the Northeast, Manhattan averaged the most expensive asking rents at more than $69 per square foot, according to the report. Boston’s asking rents were around $44 and New Jersey’s were more than $35.

    Philadelphia’s 18.4% office vacancy rate, meanwhile, was slightly higher than the other Northeast markets, as well as the national average of 17.6%, according to the report.

    The analysis, released last week, reflected the broader challenges that all office markets are up against. In Philadelphia and elsewhere, the office landscape has shrunk since the pandemic, with many employers downsizing their space amid the rise of hybrid work.

    Some Center City office buildings have plummeted in value and are now becoming apartment complexes. Among them: The iconic Wanamaker Building and Centre Square, better known as the “Clothespin building” for the sculpture outside it.

    Chubb’s new 18-story tower at 2000 Arch St. may be Center City’s last new office building for a while, local industry experts say.

    The last new office built in Philadelphia? Inside Chubb’s new Center City building.

    Between January and May, $220 million in office sales were recorded in Philadelphia, according to the Commercial Cafe report, and $387 million in New Jersey. In the Garden State, 630,000 square feet of offices were under construction, found the report, which did not have under-construction data for Philadelphia.

    Peter Kolaczynski, the director of Yardi Research, helped compile the report, and noted the trend toward office reuse.

    “The destruction of value that we have discussed for years is showing through in the sales data,” Kolaczynski said in a statement. “With this decrease cost in acquisition comes opportunity — whether that is conversions to apartments, repositioning to best-in-class office and coworking, or full-on redevelopment and revitalization projects.”

  • Yaxel Lendeborg’s untraditional path to becoming an NBA draft pick was fueled by his mother

    Yaxel Lendeborg’s untraditional path to becoming an NBA draft pick was fueled by his mother

    On Tuesday night, Yaxel Lendeborg will likely be a first-round pick in the NBA draft.

    But the Pennsauken High graduate’s basketball career nearly ended after playing just 11 varsity games. If not for his mom, Yissel, Lendeborg might not ever have played Division I basketball, much less become a lottery pick.

    “Seeing him, and seeing his mother, and how much she has [meant] to him, and how much work she’s done to be able to help guide him mentally, and obviously on the court, it’s been the honor of my coaching career,” Pennsauken coach Harrison Carsillo said.

    Yaxel Lendeborg played one season of varsity at Pennsauken. Now he’s Michigan’s star forward.

    Lendeborg wasn’t academically eligible to play basketball for a large portion of high school. He played on Pennsauken’s freshman team, but was held out for his sophomore and junior seasons, and most of senior year. He trained in the summer with coaches and friends from Pennsauken, but watched from the sidelines during the school year.

    In a Players’ Tribune article, Lendeborg said that the turning point for him was during his senior year. One night, after staying out late with his friends playing video games, his mom confronted him and told him that he needed to focus to even graduate from Pennsauken, much less play basketball.

    “This is no joke right now,” Lendeborg said in the article. “Nobody is smiling here. You have your mom up in this minivan crying her eyes out because you don’t know how to be a good son. Your own mom! Who does everything for you. Works two jobs. Shows you love no matter what. And this is how you’re being?!?!?!”

    Yaxel Lendeborg averaged 15.1 points and 6.8 rebounds in 40 games for Michigan last season.

    During that final year, Lendeborg improved his grades enough to play the final 11 games of the high school season, even competing in the NJSIAA playoffs. But he thought his basketball career was over, until his mom set him up to attend junior college at Arizona Western College. Lendeborg wrote that she planned the going-away party without even telling him he was going, because she knew he needed that push.

    From there, Lendeborg had one of the most improbable rises to the draft, transferring to Alabama-Birmingham in 2023 and then Michigan before last season, where he won Big Ten Player of the Year and an NCAA title. Lendeborg, a 6-foot-9 forward, averaged 15.1 points and 6.8 rebounds in 40 games for the Wolverines.

    Lendeborg was always talented, Carsillo said. His biggest problem was not believing in himself. Carsillo and Lendeborg’s mom forced him to pick up the phone after Division I schools started calling him about transferring, because he wasn’t sure if that was the right fit for him.

    “He didn’t answer the phone, and I said to him, ‘If you don’t answer that phone call, I’m going to take your phone, and I’m going to smash it, or rip your sneakers.’ I [was] going to be so upset, because he didn’t believe in himself that he could actually do what we knew he could do, if he put his mind to it,” Carsillo said.

    The Sixers start the Mike Gansey era with the 22nd pick. Here’s where we stand hours before draft night.

    “It was a really funny moment. I obviously wasn’t going to rip his sneakers or smash his phone, but I was very upset, because it was almost just a mental thing going into it, because he had so much potential that he didn’t even see himself.”

    After two years at UAB, Lendeborg was a fringe first-round prospect. He could have ended his college career there, but instead spent another year in college to develop further, and prove to himself and to NBA draft scouts that he could succeed at that highest level. Carsillo said that Lendeborg’s year at Michigan has him more confident and aware of his sky-high potential.

    But what’s stood out the most to Carsillo over the years is Lendeborg’s selflessness, on and off the court. In the Final Four, Lendeborg suffered an MCL and ankle sprain. Some advised him not to play to protect his draft stock, but Lendeborg insisted on helping his teammates see it through and vowed, “I’m playing no matter what.”

    At halftime of the national championship game on April 6, he said he felt “awful,” but still gritted out a 13-point, 36-minute performance in the 69-63 win over UConn.

    Yaxel Lendeborg spent two seasons at UAB after attending Arizona Western College.

    “That’s him,” Carsillo said. “He could have easily just said, ‘No, I’m good.’ He knows he’s going to get drafted. He knows he’s changed his family’s life. It’s amazing. That’s exactly who he is, 100%, and he was like that at Pennsauken, just much lower stakes.”

    Lendeborg even has a chance to reunite with his college coach, Dusty May, who reportedly accepted the Dallas Mavericks’ head coaching job on Monday. The Mavericks hold the No. 9 pick in the draft, slightly above where Lendeborg has been projected, but Lendeborg joked Monday that he’s “going to tell him he better pick me up. If he doesn’t, I’m going to be mad. I might block him.”

    The forward has grown up a lot since high school. He’s one of the oldest prospects in the draft, but he’s played only about six seasons of organized basketball. He grew up playing baseball, and told ESPN that he first learned how to play basketball through the NBA 2K video game.

    What can the Sixers expect with the No. 22 draft pick? Past drafts illustrate the unpredictability.

    “He still has so much room to grow, and he’s still learning how to become a better basketball player; it’s remarkable,” Carsillo said. “He has a little bit of self doubt, but not much anymore. This whole process with the NBA and Michigan turned his eye and turned his mindset around to be able to prove to himself, like, ‘I can do what my mother has always told me I could do.’”

    Lendeborg’s mom can’t attend as many games as she used to. She’s currently nearing the end of her treatment cycle for appendix cancer, which she initially kept hidden from Lendeborg to keep him focused on his season at Michigan. But planned to be in Brooklyn on Tuesday to watch her son’s NBA journey begin — a journey he’d never have come close to if not for her pushing him every step of the way.

  • Military members and veterans in Camden County can now get free legal services. Here’s what to know.

    Military members and veterans in Camden County can now get free legal services. Here’s what to know.

    Current and former military personnel can now receive free estate planning assistance in Camden County to help support their families’ futures.

    The Camden County Board of Commissioners launched the new clinic last month, one of several no-cost legal services available to vulnerable South Jersey residents.

    The clinic, currently scheduled monthly, gives active service members, veterans, and their spouses living in Camden County access to certain legal services at no charge. The county will provide a last will and testament, power of attorney, and an advance directive, which documents a person’s preferences for medical treatment in case they become unable to make their own healthcare decisions.

    Sixteen veterans are signed up for the first Veterans Will Clinic on Wednesday at the Camden County One-Stop Career Center in Cherry Hill Township, said Morgan Callan, the county’s external communications manager. There is no current cap for how many veterans can participate.

    The Camden County Office of Veterans Affairs is now accepting registrations for the second clinic, on July 29. Anyone interested should contact the office by calling 856-374-5801, or by visiting the office at 1 Collier Drive in Blackwood, part of the Camden County Lakeland Complex.

    Help for veterans

    Camden County has nearly 19,000 veterans, according to the most recent estimate available from the U.S. Census Bureau.

    The Camden County Office of Veteran’s Affairs has partnered with Susan Purvin, an attorney from Gloucester County, to help provide the services. Louis Cappelli Jr., one of Camden County’s three commissioners, said in a statement that he hopes everyone eligible takes advantage of the program.

    “Our veterans and servicemembers have sacrificed so much in service to our nation, so have their families,” Cappelli Jr. said. “The least we can do is help them get their affairs in order, giving them the confidence that their last wishes will be protected.”

    The cost to Camden County for the program is $50 per will, $25 per power of attorney, and $100 per hour for every legal information session, with the total cost varying based on how many people show up for the clinics, said Dan Keashen, the county’s public affairs director.

    Other counties in South Jersey provide similar services. All active military personnel and veterans in Gloucester County can receive assistance with a simple will, a legal document for those not looking to involve complicated estates or trusts in their end-of-life plans.

    About 20 attorneys recently volunteered for a free event in Cape May County that helped veterans and their spouses prepare a will, power of attorney, and healthcare directive free of charge.

    More free legal services

    You don’t have to be a veteran to find free legal services in Camden County.

    The Camden County Bar Association hosts Wills for Heroes, a small, volunteer-led clinic that provides free wills and estate planning documents to firefighters, police officers, and paramedics, and their spouses annually. The 2026 clinic, which took place in March, was full at 21 participants.

    Kara Edens Graser, the association’s executive director, said she hopes to run the same clinic next year.

    Camden County also offers free legal workshops, which cover the same services as those now available to veterans, for seniors and residents with disabilities aged 18 and over.

    Plus, about 300 attorneys volunteer on an as-needed basis for the Volunteer UP Legal Clinic, a Camden-based nonprofit that provides legal expertise to those who need it. The nonprofit spent more than $300,000 in 2024 to provide legal services for tenants, criminal record expungement, estate planning, and name changes, according to its 2024 tax filing.

    Volunteer UP also provides same-day eviction defense for tenants in Burlington, Camden, Cumberland, Gloucester, and Salem Counties, CEO Steven Salinger said via email.

  • Authorities ID 3 people killed in Maryland crash of plane from Ocean City, N.J.

    Authorities ID 3 people killed in Maryland crash of plane from Ocean City, N.J.

    Maryland State Police on Monday released the names of three young men killed when a plane that took off from Ocean City, N.J. crashed late Saturday night east of Washington D.C.

    Around 11:30 p.m. Saturday, a single-engine Piper Cherokee piloted by Yoav Bomrind, 26, of Israel, with two passengers, David Rabinovich, 19, or Israel, and Elad Naidik, 20, of Canada, crashed in a wooded area in Bowie, Md.

    Maryland State Police said Prince George’s County Public Safety Communications received an iPhone crash alert around 11:45 p.m. indicating the plane went down in the area of U.S. Routes 50 and 301 in Bowie.

    The plane was headed to the Montgomery County Airpark in Gaithersburg, Md., approximately 20 miles northwest of Bowie, apparently as part of a training flight, the state police said.

    Based on preliminary information, investigators believe the plane was owned by a flight school in Montgomery County, Maryland, the state police said.

    Multiple agencies responded to the crash area and the plane was located around 3:45 a.m. Sunday near a residential neighborhood. All three men were pronounced dead at the scene.

    No one else was injured, the state police said.

    The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the crash.

  • Advocates say Delaney Hall detainees have ended hunger strike

    Advocates say Delaney Hall detainees have ended hunger strike

    A hunger and labor strike by detained immigrants at Newark migrant jail Delaney Hall that drew national attention and sparked weeks of violent protests outside the detention center has effectively ended, immigration advocates said Monday.

    The detainees ended their strike because of the actions taken by the jail’s guards, and not because conditions behind bars have improved, the advocates said.

    “Because of the intimidation tactics, the disciplinary consequences for folks to be placed in segregation, [detainees] have now resorted to going back to job assignments and eating,” said Sally Pillay, an advocate with Eyes on ICE who has spent months outside of the migrant jail aiding families of detainees.

    A request for comment from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security was not immediately returned. Federal officials have said for weeks that detainees never engaged in a hunger or labor strike.

    More than 300 detainees inside the immigration detention center said they launched the strike May 22 to call attention to what they called inhumane conditions, including inedible food and poor treatment by guards. Delaney Hall soon became a national flashpoint, attracting members of Congress, state officials, and sustained crowds of protesters to Doremus Avenue in Newark on a near-daily basis.

    Amy Torres, the executive director of New Jersey Alliance for Immigrant Justice, speaks outside Delaney Hall on Tuesday, Dec. 23, 2025.

    Amy Torres, executive director of the New Jersey Alliance for Immigrant Justice, said the tactics used to break the strike are nothing new. Some detainees were transferred out of the facility as a “means of punishing them for being part of that dissent,” she said.

    Torres said among those transferred was a 20-year-old man who crossed the border at 18. He was transferred in the last two days and his location remains unknown as of Monday, she said.

    “There are hundreds more that have disappeared,” Torres said. “There’s no way to account for where they are. Are they OK? What’s going on with them? It’s pure heartbreak.”

    Pillay said activist groups have tracked detainees to facilities in Louisiana, Texas, Pennsylvania, California, Arizona, and Colorado.

    “These transfers have had devastating consequences,” she said. “We know that these facilities are in remote locations where people do not have access to their lawyers, to their families, and their support networks.”

    She noted that detainees in the units most active in the strike were deliberately broken up, with people dispersed throughout the facility. Detainees have also raised new concerns inside the jail, like discolored drinking water and weeks without access to hot water, Pillay said.

    Family visitation, which was briefly suspended during the strike, was reinstated with sharp restrictions. Pillay said visitations have been cut to 30 minutes, are only offered twice a week in some units, and are limited to immediate family members on an approved list. She said Geo Group — the private company that runs the detention center — has not posted information about the new visitation schedule online, so families show up expecting the old schedule and are turned away.

    Detainees have also been blocked from speaking with members of Congress conducting oversight visits. Detainees must now sign a privacy waiver, provided only in English, before a member of Congress can speak with them, and forms must be submitted in advance of the visit, a process Pillay said is “to probably intimidate and use retaliatory tactics against the individuals who speak out.”

    On Father’s Day, Pillay said of the 80 family members who arrived to visit loved ones, more than 30 were turned away.

    “We saw heightened emotions, distraught families, and loved ones outside,” she said.

    Dozens showed up for a protest Sunday. Some tied neckties to the fence outside the jail in honor of the fathers who remain detained and some held up signs that read, “Free the dads.”

    One protester holding an upside-down American flag near the driveway of the prison was hit by a car entering the jail parking lot, video shows. Newark Public Safety Director Emanuel Miranda said the incident is under investigation.

    “Federal agents are brutal, abusive, and reckless with the public,” Torres said. “We can only imagine what they’re doing to people in detention behind closed doors.”

    This story originally appeared on New Jersey Monitor.

  • Virtua Mount Holly nurses approve contract after threatening to strike

    Virtua Mount Holly nurses approve contract after threatening to strike

    Nurses at Virtua Mount Holly Hospital have voted in favor of a new contract ensuring raises and safety enhancements under a deal reached with employers at the South Jersey hospital after their union threatened to strike last week.

    Under the contract approved Friday, the hospital will enforce minimum staffing ratios to ensure a certain number of nurses are caring for a given patient at all times, and hire new staff in some areas.

    Nurses will receive pay raises at an average of 16.5% through June 2028.

    The three-year contract also includes provisions for new safety measures at the hospital, including panic buttons and wearable devices for staff, and increased visitor screening for weapons, the union said. The hospital will also implement a visitor ID system. Protocols will be improved to notify nurses when they have been exposed to an infectious disease.

    “HPAE nurses are not willing to tolerate the status quo anymore so we are proud that we have won strong language to ensure nurses can care for their patients the way they were trained,” HPAE president Debbie White said in a statement.

    The contract ratification comes after Mount Holly nurses, a local chapter of the Health Professionals and Allied Employees union, voted earlier this month to strike on June 16 if they could not come to an agreement with Virtua officials.

    Both sides had been negotiating for two months, including in a 21-hour session the night before the strike vote. More than 700 unionized nurses work at the Burlington County hospital.

    Staffing levels, a concern raised by nursing unions across the country, were a particular sticking point in bargaining. Many nurses say that the number of nurses assigned to care for a given patient is a safety issue.

    Nurses last week said the strike vote — in which 92% of nurses threatened to walk off the job — helped the union reached a tentative contract agreement with Virtua.

    In a statement Monday, Chrisie Scott, senior vice president and chief marketing officer, said the three-year contract “will enable Virtua Mount Holly to continue delivering safe, high-quality care for our patients, while providing wage increases, enhanced safety measures, and updated staffing levels for our nurses.”

    “We look forward to moving ahead together,” she said.

  • A Philly woman pleaded guilty to voting twice in the 2024 presidential election

    A Philly woman pleaded guilty to voting twice in the 2024 presidential election

    A Philadelphia woman pleaded guilty Monday to voting twice in the 2024 election — first in northern New Jersey, then in the city.

    Miya Pack, 40, said little beyond responding to routine legal questions as she pleaded guilty to a charge of voter fraud before U.S. District Judge Joshua D. Wolson.

    Pack has been registered to vote since 2004 in Bergen County, N.J., prosecutors said in court documents, and she’s also been registered to vote in Philadelphia since 2016. She is not affiliated with any political party, voter records show.

    On Oct. 26, 2024, prosecutors said, Pack cast a ballot in that year’s presidential election in Bergen County. Then, 10 days later, prosecutors said, she cast a ballot in the same contest in Philadelphia on Election Day.

    They did not say whom she voted for, and she declined to comment as she left the courtroom Monday.

    President Donald Trump has repeatedly made questionable or false statements about the prevalence of voter fraud, particularly in places like Philadelphia, where Democrats heavily outnumber Republicans. Election officials and experts who study the issue generally agree that voter fraud has not historically occurred at widespread rates.

    Pack was charged by federal prosecutors last September. Prosecutors announced her indictment alongside the indictment of another man, Matthew Laiss, who was separately charged with voting twice in the 2020 election.

    Laiss later said in court documents that he voted twice for Trump, and unsuccessfully sought to claim that his actions were covered by pardons Trump extended to people who tried to help him overturn the results of the 2020 election.

    Laiss was convicted of voter fraud earlier this year at trial and is awaiting sentencing.

    Pack is scheduled to be sentenced in October. She faces the possibility of prison time, although prosecutors said in court that federal guidelines suggest a term of no jail time to six months.