At 11:30 a.m. on June 3, an activation signal went out on social media calling protesters and agitators to swarm Delaney Hall, the Newark, N.J. ICE detention facility that has become one of the nation’s most contentious immigration battlegrounds.
“CURFEW IS OVER. BACK TO DELANEY,” read an Instagram post, promoted by a fiery collection of anti-Israel, Marxist and Democratic organizations â from “Palestine Solidarity Working Group” and Al-Awda to Indivisible and 50501 â that have joined tumultuous against the ICE, Newark police and New Jersey state troopers over the past couple of weeks.
Within minutes, the call to action spread through , an encrypted messaging platform, activating hundreds of anti-ICE activists with secret monikers like “framed.unrest” and “Wicked Something,” collaborating on transportation, logistics and supplies, like goggles, protections against pepper spray, respirators and protective knee pads.
A Fox News Digital investigation, gathering information on the ground in Newark, in secret chat groups on Signal and from scores of tax filings, strategy documents and social media posts, reveals the protests outside Delaney Hall are no organic outpouring of spontaneous rage. They are the result of years of strategic planning by a network of well-funded, well-organized groups that have once again exploited a local controversy to wage a wider attack on federal immigration policies and the U.S. in general.
The activities of this network have motivated a group of tech sleuths on the X â @Astrarce, @bitchuneedsoap and @gunshymartyr â to penetrate these groups, their Signal chats and their operations like a digital Avengers squad.
According to Fox News Digital’s analysis, the network behind the Delaney Hall protests includes about 100 groups, some of them big names like the ACLU, Indivisible and Together, these organizations report collective annual revenues of about $850 million, approximately equal to the annual budget of Newark. The groups didn’t respond to requests for comment.
About 70 of the groups have received special designations as charities by the IRS, have status as regular 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4) nonprofits, as well as labor union 501(c)(5) and 501(c)(6) nonprofits, enjoying tax-deductible donations and certain tax-free benefits. In recent months, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and lawmakers on the House Ways and Means Committee, the House Judiciary Committee and the House Oversight Committee have launched investigations into the alleged to instigate conflict, sow discord and even inspire political violence.
The Delaneny network â which one expert calls the “Delaney Hall 100” â message around shared language assembled in a strategic communications document, called the “Delaney Hall Creator Brief,” which Fox News Digital obtained from X user @b—-uneedsoap. The strategy document directs content creators to call the detention center a “concentration camp” and label detainees “imprisoned prisoners” and “captives.” It tells activists to eschew saying detainees were arrested, but rather assert they were “kidnapped/abducted/taken.”
Their tactics mirror the system deployed in Minneapolis earlier this year to protest ICE actions, and military experts say the operations resemble the tactics of an insurgency.
“We should be very concerned about the Delaney Hall 100,” said Chuck Flint, a nonprofit expert and former U.S. Senate chief of staff. “Protests like the kind we’re seeing outside Delaney Hall are not organic protests. These are manufactured strategic, calculated endeavors by an army of nonprofits meant to push subversive activity. These groups generate annual revenues greater than many of the cities in which they protest. They with the ability to
