NEWARK, New Jersey (RNS) — Early on Sunday morning (Aug. 24), a dozen activists prayed in a circle before the barbed-wire gates of Delaney Hall, the 1,100-bed immigrant detention center that is the largest on the East Coast.
As a line of visitors, mostly family members of people who have been arrested, began to form in front of a guard booth, Kathy O’Leary, the organizer of the event, and Fr. Eugene Squeo led the service.
“We are here because we recognize the dignity of each and every human person,” Squeo, a retired diocesan priest of Newark, said in English, after first announcing the words in Spanish. “And no one should be treated cruelly or inhumanely.”…