2 of 4 detainees who escaped Delaney Hall immigration detention center back in custody: FBI Newark
NEWARK, New Jersey (WABC) -- Two of the four detainees who escaped an immigration detention center in New Jersey are back in police custody, FBI Newark announced.
According to authorities, Joel Enrique Sandoval-Lopez and Joan Sebastian Castaneda-Lozada have been found and arrested. Officials are still searching for Franklin Norberto Bautista-Reyes and Andres Pineda-Mogollon, who are still on the run.
According to authorities, Sandoval-Lopez is an undocumented immigrant from Honduras who entered the U.S. as a minor in 2019. On Oct. 3, 2024, the New Jersey Passaic Police Department arrested him for unlawful possession of a handgun. Police arrested Sandoval-Lopez again last February for aggravated assault.
(Video in the media player above is from a previous report.)
The four detainees were unaccounted for on Friday, according to law enforcement officials, following what the city's mayor referred to as an "uprising" at the facility.
Federal officials told local law enforcement that the four detainees had escaped, officials told ABC News. A be-on-the-lookout notice has been issued and a search is ongoing.
The Department of Homeland Security and the FBI are offering a $10,000 reward for information leading to their arrest.
They broke through a wall -- described as "drywall with a mesh interior" -- in a unit that led to an exterior wall and into a parking lot, according to U.S. Sen. Andy Kim, D-N.J., who said he was briefed by facility administrators and ICE leadership on the situation Friday along with Rep. Rob Menendez, D-N.J.
It is unclear where the detainees are and if other walls in the facility are vulnerable, Kim said during a press briefing on Friday, adding, "That just shows the incompetence and the recklessness of all this."
Kim said the facility is going through a security review and the breach is under investigation. There will be "major detainee movements out of this facility," he said.
It appears that started to happen later Friday afternoon and cameras were rolling as people started holding onto the buses to stop them from moving. The people were eventually pulled off the buses by ICE agents.
"We are now going to try to get full confirmation from ICE headquarters about what is the future of this facility and whether or not they're going to shut it down," Kim said.
The escape followed "disturbances" and unrest over the past 24 hours related to food access at the facility, Kim said.
"Because they were doing movements of detainees around, using the cafeteria to be able to do that, that interrupted dramatically the ability for detainees to get access to food, that caused a number of the unrest that was happening," Kim said.
This is on top of issues regarding the portions of food that detainees have been getting at the facility, as well as concerns about detainees being denied visitation, Kim said.
"We don't want this here in New Jersey," Kim said. "We want to make sure people are treated with dignity."
Detainees reported a lack of food and generally dismal conditions inside Thursday afternoon, leading to some to protest. As many as 50 inmates pushed down the wall inside the dormitory room after meals were delivered hours late, according to an immigration lawyer.
Private security that runs the facility attempted to gain control, along with responding federal ICE agents, they lost track of some of the detainees and four could not immediately be accounted for.
Detainees reported a smell of gas inside, indicating tear gas was being used to bring calm. An immigration group said there were "reports of gas, pepper spray, and a possible fire."
As word spread of the internal protest, protesters descended on the facility, attempting to block ICE agents from entering and exiting throughout the night.
Immigration groups said there has been "insufficient or frozen food, boiling water coming from pipes, and multiple cancelled visitation hours."
On Friday morning, two men walked out of Delaney Hall. One man claims he was arrested by accident and another described the conditions inside.
He said, translated, that "he doesn't know how to describe it, because he hasn't seen animals treated this way." He also said, "He's thinking about leaving the country because he doesn't want to go through this again."
Another man said he was arrested by accident when agents were looking for someone else. He said that he showed papers to agents but was told they were going to process him "because that's how the new administration was doing things."
Delaney Hall is run by the GEO Group, one of the country's largest private prison companies under contract with the Trump administration. It can hold as many as 1,000 migrants at a time.
The location has been controversial since it reopened earlier this year, which Newark officials challenging its certificate of occupancy. Rep. LaMonica McIver was charged with assaulting federal agents during a clash outside the facility last month. She was indicted by a federal grand jury earlier this week and is scheduled to be arraigned on Monday. She has said that she will plead not guilty.
In response to the protest Thursday night McIver said in part, "Even now, as we are hearing reports from news organizations and advocates on the ground about a lack of food and basic rights for those inside, the administration appears to be stonewalling efforts to learn the truth."
McIver said she has reached out to ICE for an answers.
Newark Mayor Ras Baraka was previously arrested for trespassing on the site, but those charges were dropped. Baraka released a statement saying in part, "We are concerned about reports of what has transpired at Delaney Hall this evening, ranging from withholding food and poor treatment, to uprising and escaped detainees. This entire situation lacks sufficient oversight of every basic detail - including local zoning laws and fundamental constitutional rights."
(ABC News contributed to this report.)
----------
* Get Eyewitness News Delivered
* Download the abc7NY app for breaking news alerts
Submit a tip or story idea to Eyewitness News
Have a breaking news tip or an idea for a story we should cover? Send it to Eyewitness News using the form below. If attaching a video or photo, terms of use apply.
