US senator says he was pepper sprayed by federal agents during protest at ICE facility

Andy Kim, a Democratic senator, said he was pepper sprayed by federal agents on Monday during a protest at a New Jersey detention facility. Video posted on social media showed Kim receiving help from a volunteer who is seen pouring water in his eyes outside Delaney Hall in Newark, where detainees are reportedly staging a hunger strike against poor conditions and denial of medical care. Demonstrators clashed with immigration officers who used batons and pepper spray as they attempted to transfer a detainee who organized the hunger strike to another facility. Kim, a senator for New Jersey, joined the state’s governor, Mikie Sherrill, at the protest to speak with relatives of some of those detained. He told USA Today that the incident in which he was sprayed by a chemical substance came shortly after he had been inside Delaney Hall to see conditions for himself. He said he emerged to a “standoff” between protesters and agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), who he said had deployed an armored vehicle as a barricade, and that he “kind of lined up in front of them” to try to de-escalate the situation. “ICE officials told me that they were going to push through the crowd with their vehicle and they wanted to get some vehicles out of there,” Kim said. “I tried to arrange a situation where people would not get hurt, where there wouldn’t be a confrontation. …