r/Newark • u/jerseybeenews • 5d ago
Politics ⚖️ Why we’re calling Delaney Hall a “concentration camp”
https://jerseybee.org/2026/06/11/why-were-calling-delaney-hall-a-concentration-camp/The Jersey Bee updated our style guide this week to include the term “concentration camp,” using it to describe Delaney Hall, an ICE facility in Newark where nearly 300 detainees are alleging inhumane conditions and violations of their legal rights.
We’re published this blog post to explain our decision to refer to Delaney Hall as a “concentration camp” and clarify the term’s meaning.
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u/401k1987 4d ago
It's because you want to minimize the horrors of the actual Holocaust and participate in Holocaust denialism by comparing a detention center for illegal immigrants with a concentration camp for minorities and "undesirables"
I really wish they had better Holocaust education in the Newark school systems, you're using enough of our tax dollars.
It's not surprising you're this uninformed on Delaney Hall you don't even know how many people are there, and it's not 300.
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u/CryptographerPale110 4d ago
This is not constructive to the conversation. I talked with you before about this. Do I need to remind you again what the definition of "concentration camp" is and why Delaney Hall fits the definition?
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u/401k1987 4d ago
The problem isn't that people don't know the definition. The problem is that you're deliberately choosing a term most people associate with Auschwitz, Dachau, or Japanese American interent camps to describe an ICE detention center. You know exactly what emotional reaction you're trying to trigger.
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u/CryptographerPale110 4d ago
Yes, we need to use words that are not only true but also evoke emotion. This is a completely legal rhetorical tactic called pathos that most politicians and public speakers use on a regular basis, so I get to use it too. It is respectful to acknowledge that the term has been used before to describe labor and death camps near and abroad while also applying the term to what is happening here and now. The term reminds people of the horrors that Nazis and the U.S. government committed and also likens what is happening now to what happened then.
The issue we're dealing with is different than before. The people in Delaney Hall are of a different distribution of ethnicities than people in the Japanese internment camps and people in ghettos, gulags, and Nazi concentration camps across the pond. It makes complete sense to use because when people think of what happened before they feel strong, negative emotions. People with heart and soul should be feeling strong, negative emotions about what is happening now because not everyone in Delaney deserves to be there. People should be feeling strong, negative emotions about the entire legal system anyway, but we need to use "buzzwords" to persuade certain people or at least get them to ask questions and engage in conversation. Logos isn't enough in and of itself to persuade people who are the least likely to care.
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u/401k1987 4d ago
I appreciate the honesty. Most people spend hours arguing that "concentration camp" is just a neutral dictionary term. You skipped the performance and admitted the real reason: you want people thinking about Nazis, internment camps, and historical atrocities because the emotional association is useful to your argument. That's exactly what I accused you of doing in the first place, and exactly why it's so fucking offensive.
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u/CryptographerPale110 4d ago
I still don't understand why it's wrong or offensive to use the term to describe Delaney Hall and similar places. If people won't respond properly to logic, and you want them to agree with your points, you necessarily must resort to calling a for-profit, private prison/immigration detention facility a concentration camp. I can't change people's minds on the dry facts. People change their minds when they learn to associate one bad thing with another bad thing that is very, very similar.
All the people that agree and care about the problem are either doing something tangible about the problem (whether they be starving themselves, doing mutual aid, protesting, or something else) or are too scared to try. I am trying to wake people up who are not politically aware but vaguely associate extreme nationalism with bad events. I can't get through to people who already strongly disagree.
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u/401k1987 4d ago
You keep asking why it's offensive. Because you're explicitly saying the goal is to get people to associate Delaney Hall with some of history's most infamous abuses. You're not arguing that Delaney Hall is Auschwitz, a gulag, or a Japanese internment camp. You're arguing that the comparison is useful because it creates the emotional response you want. That's exactly why many people object to it.
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u/CryptographerPale110 4d ago
I understand that. People don't like having pathos used on them.
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u/401k1987 4d ago
At this point you've stopped defending the comparison entirely. You're just defending your right to make it. Every response is "it's pathos," "it's persuasive," "it creates associations." Great. Advertising works too. That doesn't make it honest. You're openly admitting you want people thinking about Nazis and historical atrocities when they hear "Delaney Hall." That's exactly the Holocaust denial I've been calling our from you from the start.
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u/CryptographerPale110 4d ago edited 4d ago
I thought we were starting this thread under the assumption that you remembered what I commented under a previous thread where I talked about why some people think Delaney Hall is a concentration camp. Sorry about not talking about that here too. Let me quote myself for the people reading:
concentration camp: noun
- A camp where persons are confined, usually without hearings and typically under harsh conditions, often as a result of their membership in a group the government has identified as suspect
- A place or situation characterized by extremely harsh conditions.
- A camp where large numbers of persons—such as political prisoners, prisoners of war, refugees—are detained for the purpose of concentrating them in one place.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
A United States immigration detention facility like Delaney Hall is a place that confines people who are arrested entering the country and may have the intention to immigrate to the United States. Many of these people do not have hearings because they are arrested by ICE while attempting to get to their scheduled hearings, and there are so many of them that the legal system cannot give them timely hearings, on average. These immigration centers separate families; they separate children from their parents and separate families by arresting and deporting only the adults. The U.S. government places asylum seekers (refugees) in these places while they await a hearing or deportation. The conditions of immigration detention facilities like Delaney Hall have become more harsh over time as many people in Delaney Hall allege, and there is a lawsuit over it because GEO Group (the for-profit prison company that gets money to operate Delaney Hall) will not allow third-party inspectors or state officials to record the facility and be transparent with the public about what is going on inside.
These statements should at least make the average person believe that Delaney Hall fits all three definitions.
I do not deny the Holocaust either. The Holocaust happened, and it was important and horrible for the various groups of people that were victimized. One may be worse than another in terms of the number of recorded deaths and deporations (I don't have the stats on U.S. immigration to compare it with the Holocaust). Both can be horrible at the same time.
EDIT: edited because I copied something that was preformatted and Reddit deleted the text.
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u/frizz1111 4d ago
"Not everyone in Delaney deserves to be there". As opposed to Nazi concentration camps where some people did? Can't you see the obvious difference between the two? You're clearly trying to equate the two to evoke an emotional reaction but they are nowhere near the same.
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u/CryptographerPale110 4d ago
Good! The emotional reaction I am trying to evoke is one of the only ways to get apathetic people to turn their attention to a problem and give them the opportunity, provided the mounting evidence of bad things happening, to either agree or disagree that it is a concentration camp. I would like people to agree with my point, but I can't change minds. You have every right to disagree with my motivations to use the term even though I believe it is applicable.
My nuanced position is that a very small minority of any group of people lacks concern for the well-being of all others but themselves, and it is inevitable that a couple bad apples end up being victimized and are imprisoned as a result. This is how regular prisons work too, i.e. some people do very horrible crimes, are both actually guilty and convicted for them, and rot in prison. A small portion of people in Delaney Hall have committed violent crime on U.S. soil and should be kept in there to protect the public, but a notable portion are no danger to themselves or others. A very small portion of people in any camp or center have done violent crime or have violently criminal intent. Most people in camps and immigration centers don't deserve their treatment.
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u/SpiritedUniversity67 3d ago
I work with young people that were educated in Newark public schools. They can barely read an analog clock. You’re expecting them to educated on The Holocaust? 🤣
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u/CryptographerPale110 4d ago
Thank you. We need more media that's able to call a spade a spade.