Secret Signal chats reveal how anti-ICE agitators coordinated Newark riots
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 — from "Palestine Solidarity Working Group" and Al-Awda to Indivisible and 50501 — 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 secret groups on Signal, 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 — @DataRepublican, @Astrarce, @bitchuneedsoap and @gunshymartyr — 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 Democratic Socialists of America. Together, these organizations report collective annual revenues of about $825 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 abuse of nonprofit laws to instigate conflict, sow discord and even inspire political violence.
The Delaneny network — which one expert calls the "Delaney Hall 100" — 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 act like military battalions with the ability to overwhelm a city's public safety resources."
"It's David vs. Goliath," said Flint, who is also a former state prosecutor.
Last weekend, Fox News Digital spotlighted a series of far-left groups that self-identify as socialist, Marxist and communist blending in with immigrant groups. They included Democratic Socialists of America, the U.S. Revolutionary Communist Party, Speak Out Socialist, Refuse Fascism, Freedom Road Socialists Organization, Freedom Socialist Party and the Black Panthers.
Fox News Digital observed tents stocked with respirators, goggles, protective pads, decontamination supplies and other protest-support equipment.
Late last Saturday, controversial Marxist influencer Hasan Piker arrived at the protests for a quick walk-through, wearing a pink gas mask. He told Fox News Digital that he was there to advocate for the demands of the detainees inside, remaining on the scene for less than 30 minutes before driving off.
Later, he responded to Fox News Digital's images of the tents filled with riot-gear provisions and called the supplies "mutual aid."
The preparations for protests Wednesday night offer a window into how the organizations motivate, coordinate, mobilize, focus and discipline their foot soldiers.
By 1:17 p.m., a user, "Pete InDC," shared a video outside the detention facility, with a car honking nonstop and "ICE OUT" drawn in chalk on Doremus Avenue.
"Come on down!" wrote "Pete InDC."
At 1:29 p.m., "yarrow" asked, "any car pools from nyc today? or any medics coming from nyc?"
By 1:46 p.m., others asked if one of the main protest organizers, Cosesha, approved the protest, and yet others started organizing logistics, starting with the ordinary: food, drinks, bike racks, transportation, parking and tents, as if they were headed to a concert.
"Tamale" asked "so if we do go should we be bringing supplies or only rallying? do ppl need water."
By 2:11 p.m., when "Durga" asked for others to "like" the message if they were on Doremus Avenue, another user — "tiny" — admonished "Durga," warning "please don't self id in the chat," adding "or ask others to."
Often these organizations speak their own language, for example, compiling "otg" — or "on the ground" — intelligence.
At 3:08 p.m., "Jay D" asked, "Is anyone otg and can give a report?"
Quickly, the communications moved into a very serious preparation for a showdown with law enforcement authorities.
By 4:07 p.m., "Mason D" offered to bring "sudecon wipes for help with pepper spray/tear gas attacks, multiple sets of protective pads for elbows/knees, electrolytes" and "non-ventilated goggles." Sudecon wipes are specialized decontamination towelettes designed to neutralize and remove chemical defense sprays like pepper spray and tear gas.
Behind the scenes, months, or even years, of coordination precede these events. This past weekend's violent mobilization came after about a year of quieter activism by local groups.
In late May, hundreds of detainees launched a hunger and labor strike, igniting a wider network of advocacy organizations, legal groups, faith leaders, community organizers, elected officials and national nonprofits that quickly mobilized around the facility.
Within days, congressional delegations were demanding access, rapid-response networks were coordinating demonstrations across New Jersey, and the issue had become a national political story.
Fox News Digital found that many of the organizations active today had spent years building coalitions, communications networks, funding relationships and rapid-response infrastructure before the current protests began.
The origins of the Delaney Hall 100 can be traced to February 2025 when GEO Group Inc., a federal contractor, said that it would reopen Delaney Hall in Newark as a federal immigration detention facility under a long-term contract with ICE. The facility, near Newark Liberty International Airport, had previously housed immigration detainees before closing in 2017.
In April 2025, the City of Newark filed legal challenges against the reopening, arguing that the facility had begun operations without required permits and inspections. Democratic Mayor Ras Baraka publicly opposed the project and made Delaney Hall a central issue in his ongoing dispute with federal immigration authorities and private detention contractors.
Around then, a small group of local activists began gathering outside the facility. According to accounts from participants, one activist started visiting Delaney Hall alone in the days before detainees arrived, distributing flyers to employees and raising concerns about immigration detention. Within days, two additional activists joined. What began as an informal vigil evolved into a regular presence outside the facility.
Those early gatherings became the foundation for what would later be known as "Eyes on ICE NJ."
Throughout the spring and summer of 2025, the coalition expanded. Members of "NJ Peace Action," "Pax Christi New Jersey," "Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace," "First Friends of New Jersey and New York" and other faith and activist organizations began participating in regular vigils and support activities.
The first major direct-action protest occurred on May 14, 2025, when clergy associated with Faith in New Jersey and several Unitarian Universalist congregations blocked the facility's main entrance.
By the fall of 2025, multiple organizations had established an ongoing presence around the detention center.
The movement surrounding Delaney Hall largely operates through three overlapping coalitions.
The first, "Eyes on ICE NJ," grew from the daily vigils outside the facility. Its members focus on monitoring activity at the detention center, supporting visiting families, documenting conditions and maintaining a public presence outside the gates, engaging in narrative warfare, sharing family stories with the media, putting family members in front of microphones and giving lawmakers the constituent case studies to bolster their arguments with federal officials.
The second, "ICE Out of NJ," functions as a broader mobilization and legislative campaign. It brings together immigrant-rights organizations, rapid-response networks, labor-aligned groups and direct-action activists to oppose detention expansion and immigration enforcement policies.
The third, New Jersey Alliance for Immigrant Justice, functions as a coalition umbrella linking about 59 member organizations across the state. Its membership includes legal advocacy organizations, labor allies, immigrant-rights groups, faith-based organizations and community organizing networks.
The result is a division of labor: one coalition specializes in observation, media outreach, community support and personal narratives, while the other concentrates on mobilization, political pressure and statewide organizing, and the other focuses on the immigration issue.
Understanding the power of the Delaney Hall network requires following the nonprofit funding streams that sustain many of its major participants, including big Democratic donors like Open Society Foundations and NEO Philanthropies, that act as a source of support for some of the network's influential participants.
During the Delaney Hall controversy, elected officials including Democratic Sen. Andy Kim, Sen. Cory Booker, New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill, Rep. LaMonica McIver, Rep. Rob Menendez and others have become highly visible participants in the debate. But the protesters have also turned on them, with Indivisible organizing a protest at Sherrill's office on Monday and Democratic Socialists of America demonstrating outside the offices of New Jersey Attorney General Jennifer Davenport on Tuesday.
While Fox News Digital has been able to compile the list of organizations that make up the Delaney Hall 100, most of the network's work remains secretive.
"Most everything is concealed from the ground up to their identities in Signal chat rooms, their funding and names of the people on the streets and their leaders," said Flint, the nonprofit expert. "They know what they are doing is wrong. They don't want you to know who is in charge. They have masks on. They don't want you to know anything about their organizations, their people. They are flipping the rules. They shout to the ICE agents: 'You all are wearing masks.' Meanwhile, they are wearing masks."
"They use nonprofit status as a sword and a shield," said Flint. "They use it to take advantage of all the rules and then when they get in trouble they use it to protect themselves."
That tension has emerged in recent days as the protests have turned violent with more radical elements of the Delaney Hall 100 emerging with makeshift shields and swords.
By 4:31 p.m., an anonymous Signal user, using the "sqeek" moniker, shared a "MEDIC DONATIONS" list that experts said resembled one that would be prepared for a military operation, often identified by the manufacturer and brand type, including: "3M 8246 respirators," six "Gas mask filters," "3M 60923," "Goggles — shatterproof, without vents or foam edges (ANSI 87.1 or MIL-PREF 32432)."
"Sqeek" punctuated the message with the emoji of a muscular flexed arm.
On cue, agitators, many of them far-left white protesters clad in the black-and-white checkered Palestinian scarf called a keffiyeh, started trickling onto Doremus Avenue in front of Delaney Hall around 8 p.m. last night, sharing their commuting and parking woes in their Signal chat.
At 9:42 p.m., one agitator, behind barriers, shouted, "This is what counterinsurgency looks like!"
And then, at 9:47 p.m., as if reading off the communications strategy script, directing the groups to call Delaney Hall a "concentration camp," another protester yelled at the mostly minority Newark police officers and the other law enforcement authorities, her voice breaking: "You work for a concentration camp! You work for a concentration camp! Quit your job!"
"Kill yourself!" a man added, as the group broke into a chant, "Quit your job! Quit your job!"