Children’s entertainer Ms. Rachel visited families connected to detainees at the Delaney Hall immigration detention center in Newark, New Jersey, on Monday, calling on the federal government to end what she described as the traumatization of children by immigration enforcement.
Rachel Griffin Accurso, the YouTube and Netflix children’s content creator known to her audience as Ms. Rachel, spent Monday at a volunteer hospitality tent outside the privately run facility, where she played with children, sang songs and listened to their accounts of separated families. In an Instagram post the following day, Ms. Accurso said she met children whose hearts were broken because their parents were held inside.
“I can’t say enough wonderful things about the children and families whose loved ones are inside,” she wrote. “I can’t say enough about how this cruelty is harming and traumatizing precious children who should get to just be kids.”
She also shared a video of herself singing alongside families and immigration advocates to a song calling for solidarity and freedom. She urged her roughly 5 million Instagram followers to support the New Jersey Alliance for Immigrant Justice, a Newark-based advocacy coalition.
A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson disputed claims of family separation, telling Fox News Digital that “ICE does not separate families” and that parents are given the choice of removal with their children or placement of children with a designated safe person. The spokesperson also said DHS “has led the efforts to rescue and stop the exploitation” of hundreds of thousands of unaccompanied minors and remains focused on child protection.
The day after her Delaney Hall visit, Ms. Accurso traveled to Washington to bring the issue to Capitol Hill. She delivered more than 500 packets of handwritten letters and drawings — from children detained at the Dilley Immigration Processing Center in Texas and from children waiting outside Delaney Hall — to members of Congress from both parties.
“This is not a partisan issue,” she said. “We will all look back on this time and remember if we stood with children being abused in detention centers or with corporations making millions and harming them with our tax dollars.”
Ms. Accurso’s Delaney Hall visit occurred on the same day New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill received what she called a “closely controlled and limited tour” of the facility — the first time Sherrill had been granted entry after weeks of denied access. Sherrill said she was shown common areas but was not allowed to speak directly with detainees, and called the restrictions unacceptable.
Ms. Accurso’s visit also came days after a series of clashes between demonstrators and law enforcement outside the facility. More than 80 people have been arrested in connection with protests at the site since late May, when tensions first escalated. Newark police made six additional arrests the weekend of June 6-7, charging demonstrators with rioting and failure to disperse after they blocked the facility’s entrance and damaged property, according to Newark Public Safety Director Emanuel Miranda.
Delaney Hall, a 1,000-bed facility operated by the GEO Group, has drawn sustained political attention for weeks. On June 2, New Jersey Attorney General Jennifer Davenport filed suit against GEO Group on behalf of the state Department of Health, seeking a court order compelling the company to allow full health inspections of the facility. The attorney general cited allegations — disputed by federal officials and GEO Group — of unsanitary conditions, inadequate medical care and poor food quality raised by detainees, their attorneys and state lawmakers.
The Delaney Hall visit is the latest in a series of immigration-related advocacy efforts by Ms. Accurso. In March, she conducted video calls with children detained at the Dilley Immigration Processing Center in South Texas and told NBC News she was embarking on a mission to close the facility. In that interview she embraced the description of her work as political.
“I am political,” she said. “It’s political to believe that children are worthy of love and care, and that every child is equal.”
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