NEW BRUNSWICK, NJ —
New Jersey residents—including faith leaders, labor activists, students, immigrants, educators, legal observers, medics, journalists, and community members—have gathered outside Delaney Hall for more than a week in support of the hunger strikers inside the detention center demanding authorities address the unsafe food, medical neglect, denial of due process, retaliation against those detained, and deplorable conditions inside the facility.
The Rutgers AAUP-AFT and Rutgers Adjunct Faculty Union condemn both the imposition of separate protest zones and the use of New Jersey State Police against community members protesting conditions at Delaney Hall and call on the governor to immediately halt the repression of peaceful demonstrators and address the ongoing abuses of those detained at Delaney Hall, including expanding access to legal representation for detained community members through fully funding the Detention and Deportation Defense Initiative.
As unions representing thousands of educators, researchers, healthcare workers, and public servants across New Jersey, we believe that an injury to one is an injury to all. “The people detained at Delaney Hall are members of our communities, our workplaces, our classes, and our families,” said Rebecca Givan, Rutgers AAUP-AFT president. “Reports of abuse, medical neglect, and retaliation against detainees demand immediate action.”
We are alarmed that state resources are being directed against unarmed protesters while the documented concerns that brought people into the streets remain unaddressed.
Workers have always organized when other avenues for justice have been denied to them. Whether on a picket line, in a workplace, on a campus, or inside a detention facility, collective action is a necessary response by people whose rights and dignity are under attack. We stand in solidarity with all those inside the center and in the streets organizing for humane treatment, due process, and fundamental human rights.
The same forces attacking immigrants are also attacking public education, organized labor, academic freedom, and democratic participation. They rely on fear, division, and intimidation. “Many of our members are immigrants, too, and all of us teach and work alongside immigrant students, workers, and families every day,” said Heather Pierce, Rutgers Adjunct Faculty Union president. “At a time when the Trump administration is escalating attacks on immigrants, higher education, organized labor, and democratic institutions, New Jersey’s leaders should be defending vulnerable communities and protecting the right to dissent, not contributing to their intimidation.”
The Rutgers faculty unions reaffirm their commitment to defending workers, students, families, and communities across New Jersey and to standing in solidarity with all those fighting for justice, safety, dignity, and democratic rights.
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Rutgers AAUP-AFT represents more than 5,000 full-time faculty, graduate workers, postdoctoral associates, and EOF counselors at the state university’s three main campuses and beyond. Our union is one of the oldest higher ed unions in the country, negotiating collective bargaining agreements for full-time faculty since 1970 and graduate workers since 1972.
The Rutgers Adjunct Faculty Union represents roughly 3,000 lecturers overall. Lecturers work in nearly every department at Rutgers, teaching at least 30% of all undergraduate courses, and hundreds more work in our professional and graduate schools. Adjunct faculty voted to unionize in 1988.