A new point of protest against United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement activities is taking place at the Delaney Hall immigration detention center in Newark, New Jersey.
Last month, detainees at the center, owned by for-profit prison company Geo Group, launched a hunger strike, according to Cosecha, an immigrant advocacy group.
Detainees have reported experiencing medical neglect, as well as being fed moldy and expired food while being housed in overcrowded cells, according to PBS News.
To stand in solidarity and amplify the detainees’ calls for improved living conditions, protesters have gathered outside of the facility in recent weeks, facing violent pushback and arrests from local law enforcement and ICE agents.
But amid footage of demonstrators being pepper-sprayed and handcuffed, beloved children’s entertainer Ms. Rachel has shared another view of the situation on the ground.
Yesterday, Rachel Accurso, known to most children as Ms. Rachel, visited with children and family members of those detained inside of Delaney Hall.
Inside the activist-created “Radical Hospitality Zone,” she hugged children, learned stories about loved ones inside, and sang protest songs.
“I’m still processing being outside Delaney Hall Immigration Detention Center in N.J. yesterday,” Accurso wrote on Instagram earlier today.
“I can’t say enough wonderful things about the children and families whose loved ones are inside. I can’t say enough about how this cruelty is harming and traumatizing precious children who should get to just be kids.”
Accruso has long been vocal about children’s rights, advocating for children in Gaza, Sudan, and the Congo, as well as other children impacted by ICE, detained at Dilley Detention Facility in Texas.
Her advocacy has sparked backlash, but she is steadfast in her commitment to children.
“I will always stand with these families,” she wrote in another post from her time outside of Delaney Hall, speaking with a family whose father — a truck driver who has lived and worked in the U.S. for 20 years — is detained in the facility.
“It makes no sense that their family has been ripped apart,” Accurso wrote. “Why are we traumatizing kids?”
Accurso also shared the GoFundMe for this particular family, which has reached its goal of $10,000.
In addition to learning the stories of families impacted by ICE, Accurso also sang with the children. Together, they sang a song called Sing Them Home, which Accurso said was written with children detained at Dilley Detention Facility alongside the group Peace Poets.
The lyrics are as follows:
“I’ll sing from here / and you sing from there / together, we’ll sing down the walls everywhere / with love in our hearts / rising up like the sea / together, we’ll sing until everyone’s free.”
She urged viewers at home to join the call.
“Please make a video of yourself singing this song with #singthemhome,” she wrote. “The children are singing in jail while we sing it outside to them at 7 p.m. every night. Until everyone is free.”
Accurso also made a point to thank the New Jersey Alliance for Immigrant Justice, a coalition of activists supporting on-the-ground efforts to help families and detainees, adding that she was “so moved by all the volunteer organizations that are helping.”
“These kids are so kind. They are also traumatized and miss their parents so much. After meeting them, I was up until 2 a.m. worried about them,” Accurso wrote in her reflection of the experience.
“I know if you came and played cars, and drew with chalk with them, and laughed, and sang, and saw their tears you wouldn’t want what is happening to happen,” she added.
“Please stand with these children, and the children detained at Dilley,” she concluded, adding a quote from James Baldwin: “All of the children are ours.”
You may also like: How historic protest music has inspired anti-ICE resistance in Minnesota
Header image courtesy of Rachel Accurso/Instagram
