Families visiting loved ones at Delaney Hall, the privately run ICE detention facility in Newark, New Jersey, say a strict and inconsistently enforced dress code is repeatedly preventing them from seeing detained relatives.
Visitors interviewed outside the facility said they have been turned away for clothing items including Crocs, leggings, heels, dresses, shorts and other outfits that guards deemed unacceptable. Some families allege the rules have also been applied to children younger than 12, even though Delaney Hall’s publicly posted dress code says the visitor dress rules apply to people age 12 and older.
The allegations add a new layer to the controversy surrounding Delaney Hall, which has become a major flashpoint in the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. The facility has faced protests, claims of poor conditions and legal action from New Jersey officials seeking greater access for state health inspectors.
For families, however, the dress code has become a daily barrier to visitation.
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One woman, identified by The Guardian as Gabriela Soto, said she has regularly tried to visit her detained husband with her children. She said she or her children have been rejected more than 10 times over alleged dress code violations. In one case, she said guards nearly rejected her 11-month-old child over a onesie. In another, she said her four-year-old daughter was turned away for wearing leggings.
Families and advocates say the rules are not only strict but unpredictable. Some visitors said the same clothing might be accepted one week and rejected the next, depending on which guard is working. Others said they lost part or all of their limited visitation time while trying to find replacement clothing.
Delaney Hall’s official visitation rules prohibit open-toed shoes, tight clothing, pants with holes, certain dresses and skirts, and undefined “gang colors.” The rules also say visitors must wear shoes at all times and that skirts and dresses must extend to the knee while seated. For female visitors age 12 and older, the rules also ban form-fitting clothing without a bra.
Those rules resemble prison-style visitation policies, which officials often defend as security measures. But immigrant advocates argue that Delaney Hall’s enforcement has become unusually harsh and intrusive, especially when it affects young children or families who have traveled long distances.
Outside the facility, volunteers have created an informal support system. On visitation days, activists with groups monitoring ICE activity provide bins of donated clothing, shoes and other items for visitors who are turned away. The goal is to help families quickly change and try again before their visitation window closes.
Crocs have become one of the most common rejected items, advocates said, because of the ban on open-toed shoes. Visitors have also reportedly been turned away for heels, sandals and other footwear, even when they believed the shoes met the posted rules.
The issue is especially painful because visits with detained relatives are already stressful. Families often wait in long lines, travel long distances and bring children who may not understand why they cannot see a parent. When a visit is rejected over clothing, families say it can feel arbitrary and humiliating.
Delaney Hall is operated by GEO Group under contract with ICE. GEO directed questions about the dress code to ICE, according to reporting on the issue. DHS has denied some broader allegations about conditions at the facility, including claims of a hunger strike, and has said state health inspectors have been allowed access. ICE and DHS did not provide a detailed response to the dress code allegations in the initial report.
The dress code dispute comes amid wider scrutiny of Delaney Hall. New Jersey has sued GEO Group over access for state health inspectors, citing concerns related to food preparation, storage and possible tuberculosis infection control practices. Advocates and detainee families have also alleged poor conditions, retaliation and restrictions on communication.
DHS has pushed back on several of those claims, saying the facility is subject to oversight and that reports from activists are exaggerated or false. The administration has defended expanded detention as part of its immigration enforcement strategy.
Still, the visitor accounts raise a narrower question: even if a detention center has security rules, are those rules being applied fairly, consistently and in a way that preserves family contact?
For detained immigrants, family visits can be one of the few sources of emotional support while they fight immigration cases. For children, seeing a detained parent may help maintain a fragile connection during a period of fear and uncertainty.
If clothing rules are being used in a way that blocks visits unnecessarily, advocates argue, the effect is not just administrative. It becomes another form of separation.
Why It Matters
The Delaney Hall dress code controversy matters because family visitation is a crucial part of life for people in detention. When visits are denied over unclear or inconsistently applied clothing rules, families can lose rare opportunities to see loved ones.
The allegations also raise broader questions about how privately run immigration detention centers treat visitors, children and detainee families under the Trump administration’s expanded enforcement policies.
What Comes Next
Advocates are likely to continue documenting rejected visits and pressing ICE, DHS and GEO Group for clearer rules and more consistent enforcement.
New Jersey’s legal fight over access to Delaney Hall may also keep the facility under public scrutiny, especially as protesters and immigrant rights groups continue calling attention to conditions inside.
Families and advocates say Delaney Hall’s visitor rules have blocked children and relatives from seeing detained loved ones, adding to scrutiny of conditions at the Newark ICE facility.
🚨”I don’t sleep at night, why do I have to go through this?” 10-year-old Nayeli Gomez, whose dad is imprisoned in Delaney Hall, FAINTED after guards refused to let her in to visit him. She previously went VIRAL for confronting ICE agents—her mom thinks this was retaliation ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/9aY9NGSBox
— Status Coup News (@StatusCoup) June 14, 2026
ICE officers made quick work of the tape spread across the entrance to Delaney Hall; reminding protestors not to block the area. pic.twitter.com/TJa1xj3G9X
— Patrick Nealis (@Patrick_Nealis) June 14, 2026
