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From NJ PBS Studios, this is NJ Spotlight News with Brianna Vannozzi.

Hello and thanks for joining us.

I'm Brianna Vannozzi.

We're bringing you a special NJ Spotlight News edition of Reporters Roundtable, where Joanna Gagis has a roundup of the top political stories of the week with the help of a panel of local journalists.

Reporters Roundtable begins right now.

The primaries in New Jersey are over and the midterms are just beginning.

And it's all happening with the backdrop of unrest at Delaney Hall.

Hi, everyone.

I'm Joanna Gagis.

This is Reporters Roundtable.

We've got a panel of journalists with us to help break down everything that's happened in this last week of New Jersey news.

Let's see who we've got today.

First up, Colleen O'Dea, Senior Writer and Projects Editor with NJ Spotlight News.

We have Daysi Calavia-Robertson, columnist with NJ.com, and P. Kenneth Burns, our friend Ken, over there, New Jersey reporter for WHYY.

Welcome, all of you.

Well, Governor Sherrill faced a whole lot of backlash and public scrutiny after calling in the New Jersey State Police to help control the protests outside Delaney Hall earlier this week, and it all happened just before primary election day on Tuesday.

We're going to get into all of that in just a bit, but I do want to start with the election results first.

Ken, there were several primary congressional races down in South Jersey.

Can you tell us who won in districts?

We're gonna take them one at a time, but districts two, three, and four.

- Absolutely.

So in the second district, you have Zach Mollick, the Cape May mayor.

He will be the one challenging Jeff Van Drew, the Republican incumbent.

And Democrats believe that this is their best chance that they have to flip that seat back to blue.

Recall back in 2019, Van Drew famously flipped and pledged his support to President Trump and the GOP, and it's been interesting quite since.

In District 3, you have Michael McGuire, an ex-Marine, ex-NYPD officer and current attorney.

He'll take on Herb Conaway, who's seeking a second term.

In the 4th District, you have Rachel Peace, hoping to unseat Chris Smith, who has been in that seat for about as long as I've been alive.

- Yes, I don't wanna say it, but he has been in that seat since I was born.

Don't look it up and don't do any math.

Just quickly-- - Indy Vaux.

(laughing) - Colleen, I wanna look at what's happening in North Jersey.

There were several primary races there as well.

Can you talk us through some of the matchups that we're now gonna see in District 7, District 9 and District 12?

Let's start with 7.

- Yeah, so in District 7, Rebecca Bennett won.

She was, on the Democratic side, she was considered to be the favorite.

She actually won by 25 points, so she had a pretty decisive victory there.

About 45% of the vote is what she got.

And she's considered the best, the Democrats' best chance to unseat Tom Kean Jr.

in the fall.

In District 9, we still don't have a call in the Republican race to challenge us, Representative Nellie Poe in the fall.

She's the Democrat.

She was unopposed.

The two candidates are only about 400 votes apart.

The Clifton City Councilwoman, Rosie Pino, is in the lead right now.

And just about 400 votes behind her is Tiffany Burris.

She is an attorney and the wife of a former New York giant.

And in the 12th district, which is Bonnie Watson Coleman, she's retiring.

We had 13 people on the ballot there.

Adam Hamawe is the person who won.

He won by less than 30% of the vote.

It's about 28% right now.

And he's been somewhat of a controversial figure, a surgeon credited with saving the life of U.S.

Senator Tammy Duckworth when she was injured in the Iraq War, and yet also someone who was associated with the blind sheik, the man called the blind sheik, who was charged and actually convicted in connection with the first bombing of the World Trade Center back in '93.

Yeah, that doesn't, that certainly was raised during the election season, but it doesn't seem to have changed the minds of voters in that district at all.

They support him.

I am curious though when we look at nine, Republicans have long said that they think they can flip this poe seat, that they can flip it red.

Do you see any indication so far that there's going to be real national money put behind that race to try to turn nine red?

I think if we were talking 2024, that would be, we'd have a different conversation.

But look what happened last year in the governor's race.

That district went overwhelmingly for Mikey Sherrill.

I think they saw those results in '24 when President Trump won Passaic County and Poe had a tough election campaign, but she did win.

I think that the Republicans saw that as a chance, but I think that chance is long gone now.

- Yeah, these elections took place right after we saw clashes between protesters and police outside of Delaney Hall.

We're hearing calls, continued calls from Democratic leaders for Delaney to be shut down.

I had a chance to speak with Rebecca Bennett after her win in District 7 earlier this week.

I asked her whether she would support those calls to close Delaney Hall.

Here's what she had to say.

Would you join calls that we've heard from Democratic Congress members and senators and others for Delaney and/or Elizabeth detention facility to be closed?

Do you support that as a move that is right for New Jersey, right for the country?

I'm really focused on, you know, what can we do at a federal level from an ICE perspective?

And so to me, it's about, you know, they absolutely need to not have masks on.

They need to have identification.

They need to have warrants.

And so to me, this is about holding ICE accountable, just like any other federal law enforcement agency.

What ICE is doing in this country is making us less safe and less secure.

And so we need to also recognize that part of the reason we're here is because Congress has failed to have meaningful immigration reform for the last 30 plus years.

And so this is something that we need to work towards to make sure people like Dreamers have a pathway to citizenship and that we're thinking about really having meaningful immigration reform in this country.

And so just to those centers being closed, you would not call for them to be closed.

Is that right?

Is that what I'm hearing?

I am focused on, you know, what can we do from the federal perspective right now, which is really making sure the ICE is being held accountable to the law of the land.

So, Daysi, as you see there, Bennett just wouldn't take a position on that.

We can get more into the politics of it in a minute, but who is right now calling for Delaney to be closed?

Congressman Menendez, Congresswoman LaMonica McGyver, Ana Lilia Mejia, and even Ros Baraka, the mayor of Newark himself, has been very vocal about taking a strong stand in what would be best for our community is to completely shutter Delaney Hall.

So when we hear calls like this, it kind of harkens back to when we were seeing the Black Lives Matter protests and we were hearing calls for defund the police, right?

These are very big moves.

Just looking granularly at Delaney Hall, its closure wouldn't stop any of the enforcement actions of the Trump administration, right?

If anything, it would just move detainees to a different location?

Yes, so in theory, if Delaney Hall did close, there's still the Elizabeth Detention Center in Elizabeth, and if that one is much smaller than Delaney Hall, so if that one was at capacity, what would happen would be people would be sent to other states, to detention centers in Louisiana and Texas and California.

Not that that's not already happening.

That is definitely happening now, but without a secondary detention center and again, keeping in mind that the Elizabeth Detention Center is a lot smaller than Delaney, in theory that would be what would happen.

Are you hearing those calls on the ground or what else are you hearing on the ground?

Because you've been there all week.

You were there last weekend as tensions were rising.

What are you hearing from folks there?

What I'm hearing from folks there is that, you know, closing Delaney Hall, that's one first step, right?

They are aware that there are other detention centers, like I said, in Elizabeth, in other states.

And so I think what activists are really calling for and are being very, very vocal about is they want to abolish ICE.

They want all detention centers closed.

They want every person in detention freed.

So I don't think they're not hiding it.

They're being very vocal.

They're out there every night shouting, "Abolish ICE and F-ICE and other things like that."

So that's what they want.

They want people who don't have criminal records freed.

They want people who they believe shouldn't be locked up because, again, they aren't criminals, right?

They're not the worst of the worst that Trump promised he would lock up during his campaign.

These are just hardworking people, innocent people who have families.

Many of them have been in this country for years and years, working hard, paying their taxes and haven't had a clear pathway to citizenship.

Ken, I want to ask you, we saw a lot of blowback, I'd say, anger directed towards the governor when she sent in the New Jersey State Police folks, said that that is actually what escalated tension at the ground, that it wasn't the protests themselves.

Of course, the New Jersey State Police painted a very different picture, said they were charged by protesters.

There seemed to be, at first, a lot of unity between Mayor Baraka and Governor Sherrill, both sending in their police force, Newark police were there alongside state police.

The mayor, just a few days later, kind of changed his tune on this and said that he feels that state police used unnecessary force.

I'm curious, when we look politically, do you believe that this is going to have legs in terms of frustration with the state response, or do you think people are going to move on quickly?

No, I think that you'll see legs, particularly for, and keep in mind, New Jersey is the federal election in the evening years and the state election in the odd years.

With that in mind, you'll definitely see legs for the federal elections this year because we have this stuff happening in real time.

Will people remember it next year?

That remains to be seen.

I wouldn't be surprised if they did remember it, particularly for some of the incumbents that are more of your moderate incumbents compared to the progressive candidates, particularly on the Democratic side.

- Just looking at the race results, do you think it had any impact in terms of how people showed up for the primaries?

- Oh, absolutely.

Just much like the gubernatorial race, you have the federal government, particularly the Trump administration, pissing people off, pardon the language, in real time as people were going through the polls.

That's part of the reason, even though Jack Ciatarelli received more votes this last go-around, he was outvoted by those who were upset by what was happening in Washington.

And now we have Delaney Hall in our backyard, and people want to see somebody go to Washington and hold ICE and the Trump administration accountable.

Colleen, just looking back at that clip we just played of Rebecca Bennett, who did not want to take a position on closing Delaney Hall.

She said she'd rather focus on other things like masks on officers.

Do you see her kind of trying to thread a needle in a district where she's going to need to appeal to moderates and to Republicans?

Yes.

Oh, absolutely.

Yeah, this is, you know, this there's still about 19,000 more Republicans registered than Democrats in the 7th District.

And so she's really got to do as you said, you know, thread the needle, walk the line.

And so I think talking about immigration reform, about the Dreamers, these are things that are, tend to have a little bit more legs in all parties.

You know, more people can agree on these than they can on something like closing a detention center, because there are certainly people who think that, a lot of people who think that, you know, immigrants who are here without proper documentation should be, should be expelled or should be, you know, deported.

So, I think that she, she is doing what she needs to do to try to walk that line and we'll see how well it works.

- Well, there's a whole lot at play there and I just want to take it piece by piece.

So, first let's talk about Congressman Tom Kean Jr.

We are taping this at the end of the week, all week and for three months now, folks have been wondering where he is.

While it seems like he's made some contact within his party, do we have any more information right now as to how he's doing, what he's dealing with, when he'll be back on Capitol Hill voting?

I mean, if I can be kind of circumspect or kind of be a journalist, I would say no, because the public still hasn't heard from him directly.

I know there was another post put out on X this week where he said, you know, it'll be a couple more weeks.

He talked about transitioning from, you know, working from working remotely to going back and working in person.

I mean, that's kind of the first time we'd heard any mention that he'd been doing any work remotely up until that point.

But, you know, it was just a few weeks ago that we heard that he had spoken to some Republican leaders and he'd spoken to the NJ Globe and he'd said, "Yeah, you know, I should be back in a few weeks."

And it's been a few weeks and so, you know, when will he come back?

We still don't know.

- Well, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the DCCC, has their eyes on this district.

What's happening there?

What kind of national influence do you think there's gonna be in this race?

- I mean, there's no question that this is a seat that they wanna flip, and they will be pouring a lot of money into it.

And Rebecca Bennett's gonna need that because she was in a four-person primary, so she may have raised more than $3 million, but she spent much of it.

She's got less than a million left.

That was as of May 13th.

So she's probably got even less than that.

So she really is gonna need an infusion of cash.

I'm sure there'll be a lot of outside money coming in from other groups as well.

We know that there was a group that tried to, you know, make her look like she was more Republican than she is.

That failed.

But we also know that the Republican Party wants to keep this seat.

So we know that Republican groups are also going to be putting money in and helping Tom Kean Jr.

So I expect this is going to be a pretty expensive race.

Yeah, and he still has his full war chest, right?

Because he didn't have to touch it for a primary race.

Daysi, I want to come back to you on Delaney Hall, because earlier this week, when Mayor Baraka kind of reversed course, as we talked about, he ended the curfew that he had put in place, and he opened up the protest zones that had been closed.

Can you just talk through what those closed zones had looked like and what it looks like there now?

- Yes, so the zones just look like a small area with like orange barricades.

There was a zone for press too, across the street, far away from any of the action, with just like a paper, a sheet of paper and with black marker that said "press" kind of close to a gas station that's across the street.

So it really didn't make much sense, the setup that they wanted to install.

And if I could jump in, they called these first amendment zones, right?

Yeah, first amendment zones.

I even, I did a video for NJ.com where I was like, isn't that supposed to be the whole country?

It's just kind of nonsensical to call it that.

So, but yes, yesterday those were kind of moved to the side and the protesters were back right in front of the main entrance of the detention center.

There were some clashes again with, you know, the authorities who were there last night.

So we're starting to see kind of more of the same as before.

- In other words, tensions are rising again.

- Tensions are rising again and protesters are still coming out.

I honestly, I don't see this going away anytime soon.

What is happening though, and what you've been reporting on is there have been some people who've been released.

Can you tell us any personal stories of folks who have come out who say they should have never been detained in the first place?

Yes.

Well, they all say that, right?

But yesterday, I actually have a very happy story to share.

There's a man who I've been reporting on for weeks now.

His name is Emanuel Rodriguez.

He is a Brazilian immigrant, and he has a life-threatening condition.

He's actually in a wheelchair.

When he entered the facility, he was on crutches.

But a guard told them that he couldn't use his crutches because he might use them as a weapon.

And so he suffered a fall, was taken to the hospital, and shortly after was given a wheelchair.

And so after the stories I wrote about him and reaching out to Rep.

Menendez, who was really instrumental in going and visiting him, he was kept in medical isolation for five months, not able to see other detainees in a cell by himself.

In the interviews that I did with him, he told me how that really affected his mental health.

And so yesterday was a really happy day because Emmanuel was finally released.

So there are people like Emmanuel who are vulnerable, who have medical conditions.

And the protesters and the congresspeople have been advocating for their release.

And so what we're seeing is that people who, like him, are ill, are being released.

People who are young, like the one young lady who missed her high school graduation because she was detained.

She was released a few days ago.

So as the days go by, we are seeing cases where people who've been advocated for are being released.

Well, I just want to say that we did speak with Congressman Jeff Van Drew earlier in the week.

He rejects the idea that there are folks who are there who shouldn't be.

He says there are hardened criminals and that if you came into this country illegally, you don't deserve to be here.

You should be detained.

You should be deported following due process.

He says that due process will take place for those who are inside.

But he also was the first Republican since all of the unrest really kind of escalated to tour the facility.

So I asked him what he saw firsthand.

Here's what he had to say.

I think people are using this politically to try to make something that just isn't true.

I don't know how else to say it.

I mean, they say things that are, there aren't children, there aren't babies, there aren't pregnant women, just those things aren't there.

And again, they say that there's somebody, people are sick and nobody's taking care of them.

I'm a dentist, so I went to medical school.

I spent some time with the physician.

People are coming in sick very often and they're doing tests on them.

He's been prescribing blood pressure medication, cholesterol medication, diabetes medication to try to get these people on back track.

And as I said, they're also getting special meals when they need them.

I think that's inaccurate.

I don't think it's true.

It's interesting.

It's all Democrats that are looking to make a political issue and situation out of this, and it's not accurate.

And I can say that.

And I'll tell you what, if anybody wants to get a lie detector, somebody that's bona fide and certified to do it, I'll go in and sit through a lie detector and I'll let them sit through a lie detector and see who comes out OK.

I'm telling you the truth.

I'm telling you how it is.

Daysi, does that square with what you've heard from folks on the ground just quickly?

Absolutely not.

Absolutely not.

OK.

And I honestly think what we need is not a lie detector.

What we need is full transparency and for the governor to be allowed to tour the facility and for other people to be allowed to come in and not just have limited inspections.

And to that point, the attorney general is suing GeoGroup for denying the Department of Health access to the facility that they say that they should have oversight visit of the jail medical unit of sleeping quarters of showers, toilet facilities, and HVAC systems.

Ken, I know you've been covering city council meetings down in Trenton where they're discussing and debating whether or not they should pass an ordinance that would ban cooperation with ICE.

Tell us what's happening there and where they're ending up on this decision.

Well, definitely some of the Delaney Hall folks have made their way to Trenton this week.

The city council had a proposed ordinance to prevent the Trenton Police Department from participating in civil immigration enforcement.

These are the warrants that were issued within the Department of Homeland Security, not by a judge in like a district court or appeals court.

But tensions flared because the point of contention for the activists are the immigration detainers.

These are warrants signed within the Homeland Security Department that asks police departments to hold onto somebody for about 48 hours after the charges were dropped or they were declared innocent.

The activists want the Trenton Police Department to not honor those detainers and it's not in the bill and at least a couple of city council members, they felt offended that they put all this work into this ordinance and the activists were saying it's not enough and they were prepared to vote no for the bill but it's been tabled for the next couple of weeks.

Hopefully to cool tensions down and to address the detainer issue, at least that's the hope.

But a lot of the people that were in the audience, they made their way to Delaney Hall.

And if I could real quick and wear my NJSBJ presidency hat, if they really want to solve a lot of these problems, have a bipartisan coalition with TV cameras and reporters going and toward the facility, because you have Democrats saying one thing and you have Jeff Andrews saying something different from everyone else.

So the only way to address this for all sides, let the Republicans in, let the Democrats in with reporters, with television cameras and let the public judge for themselves.

Yeah, there are no cameras or phones or anything allowed in the facility as of right now.

Colleen, I'm going to give you 10 seconds.

It's not fair, but we're at the end of budget season.

Give me your prediction one more time.

Will we have a budget that's signed, sealed, delivered by June 30th?

Best guess.

Maybe.

Sorry.

I can't really say because we know that there are some issues that are being negotiated right now.

So, just a maybe.

Yes, that's about as good as it gets around here.

That's all we've got for you today.

Daysi, Colleen, Ken, thank you so much for being with us.

You can follow me on Instagram @joannagagisnj and go ahead and scan that QR code on your screen to see more episodes of Roundtable.

On behalf of all the crew working behind the scenes to put this show together, I'm Joanna Gagis.

Thanks for being with us.

Have a great weekend.

- That's gonna do it for us tonight.

I'm Brianna Vannozzi.

For the entire NJ Spotlight News team, thanks for being with us.

Have a great weekend.

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