DHS Just Worked Hakeem Jeffries Over With Three Words of Truth After His Delaney Hall Stunt

Hakeem Jeffries toured an ICE detention center and declared it "not America."

DHS just reminded him that every single person inside broke federal law to get there.

What they said next left the House Minority Leader with nowhere to go.

Jeffries Visited a Detention Center and Found Criminals Being Detained

On May 31, Jeffries toured Delaney Hall – the 1,000-bed Newark ICE facility operated by GEO Group – and emerged to declare it should be shut down.

"This is not America," he announced on camera, citing alleged food shortages, inadequate medical care, and the detention of what he called "18-year-old high school girls."

What Jeffries did not mention: every single person inside Delaney Hall broke federal law to get there.

DHS made sure he didn't forget.

"DHS doesn't make the laws, Congress does," the agency posted directly in response to Jeffries on X. "We don't pick and choose which laws to enforce – and neither should you as a 'lawmaker.'"

Then came the reminder Jeffries apparently needed: "It is a crime to enter the United States illegally. EVERYONE being held inside Delaney Hall broke the law. U.S. Code, Title 8, Section 1325."

The Conditions Jeffries Called Inhumane Are Better Than American Prisons

Here's the detail the media won't put in the headline.

DHS confirmed that every detainee at Delaney Hall gets three dietitian-evaluated meals daily, clean water, clothing, bedding, and toiletries – plus phone access to family and lawyers and comprehensive medical, dental, and mental health care around the clock.

"ICE has higher detention standards than most U.S. prisons that hold actual U.S. citizens," DHS stated flatly.

Read that again.

The people who broke federal law to enter this country are being housed in better conditions than American citizens convicted of crimes.

Jeffries thinks that's still not good enough.

DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin put it even more directly: "They say it's because they're on a hunger strike – because they want their ethnic right food. Well, they can go back to their country and get whatever food they want. This isn't Holiday Inn."

https://x.com/DHSgov/status/2061187243356655729“>https://x.com/DHSgov/status/2061187243356655729

Jeffries Forgot Who Built This Facility

The outrage might land harder if Hakeem Jeffries and his colleagues hadn't spent the Obama years completely silent about ICE detention.

Delaney Hall is an Obama-era facility. Trump reopened it in 2025 specifically because Biden's four years of open border left a backlog that couldn't be ignored.

The same Democrats now calling it a human rights crisis said nothing when their president was running it.

They used Obama-era detention facility photos to illustrate their 2019 "kids in cages" hearings – twice – and deleted the tweets both times when Republicans caught them.

This is the Democratic playbook and it never changes. Ignore a problem for eight years, hand the mess to the next guy, then show up with a camera when he tries to clean it up.

Jeffries stood outside a facility his party built, filled by a border his party opened, enforcing a law his party refuses to change – and called it somebody else's failure.

That takes a specific kind of nerve.

DHS said illegal aliens can self-deport today at DHS.gov/CBPHome.

Jeffries knows the address. He just doesn't want them to use it.

Sources:

• Department of Homeland Security, "Correct the Record: DHS Debunks Sanctuary Politicians' Smears About ICE's Delaney Hall Facility in New Jersey," DHS.gov, May 29, 2026.
• Department of Homeland Security, "DHS Debunks New Jersey Sanctuary Politicians' Smears Against ICE Facility," DHS.gov, May 25, 2026.
• @DHSgov, Direct response to @RepJeffries, X (Twitter), May 31, 2026.
• Bradford Betz, "ICE facility Democrats 'stormed' holds child rapists, murderers: officials," Fox News, May 10, 2025.
• Washington Examiner, "Fact check: Delaney Hall, the ICE detention center in New Jersey under Democrats' microscope," Washington Examiner, May 2026.
• Daily Caller News Foundation, "'This Isn't Holiday Inn' – DHS Secretary Torches Illegals For Whining About Food Options," Daily Caller News Foundation, May 27, 2026.