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Demonstrator Kai Ahmarhi on Thursday records federal agents as Delaney Hall workers paint a property line outside the facility in Newark.

Delaney Hall in Newark was a demonstration battleground for citizens protesting the federal detention center.

Sophie Nieto-Munoz of the New Jersey Monitor told us on Friday:

After a week of escalating clashes between federal immigration agents and protesters outside a Newark detention facility, Gov. Mikie Sherrill announced Friday that New Jersey State Police would take over the area outside of Delaney Hall and establish protected protest zones in an effort to “cool things down” and avoid giving federal officials the "pretext" to intervene further.

"We've seen increasing violence, arrests, and pepper spray at Delaney Hall, as well as public threats from the Trump administration. And we've seen the risk to public safety rising outside of Delaney Hall," said Sherrill, a Democrat. "It has grown unsafe and that’s completely unacceptable."

The announcement capped a week in which Delaney Hall — the privately-run, 1,000-bed immigration facility in Newark run by Geo Group — became a volatile flashpoint in New Jersey’s fight against President Donald Trump’s immigration enforcement agenda.

Read the rest of Nieto-Munoz's article here.

A sampling of related coverage from Across NJ of the clashes:

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