An anti-police group involved in the unrest outside of an ICE detention facility in Newark, New Jersey, has raked in hundreds of thousands of dollars stemming from Garden State taxpayers, a Washington Free Beacon review has found.
For nearly two weeks, protesters have gathered outside Delaney Hall demanding that ICE close the facility and release the illegal immigrants held inside, and the demonstrations have at times turned violent, with rioters sporting homemade shields, erecting barricades, and clashing with federal and state law enforcement, leading to nearly 80 arrests. Resistencia En Acción New Jersey (REA NJ), a Princeton-based group whose stated mission is “to defend the migrant community criminalized by local police, ICE, exploitative employers, racial profiling and the detention and deportation system,” has been a major organizer behind the unrest.
NOW: Newark Police shove protesters as they lock arms outside of the Delaney Hall driveway area to block vehicles leaving the facility
Video by Dakota Santiago | Licensing @FreedomNTV [email protected] pic.twitter.com/ZclMSYFwQL
— Oliya Scootercaster 🛴 (@ScooterCasterNY) June 5, 2026
“Be peaceful! Stop! Stop! This is Not What We Are Here For” one Anti-ICE protester attempts to stop other protesters from pushing barricades towards Delaney Hall last night, shortly before State Police with riot shields cleared the area with tear gas and other less lethal… pic.twitter.com/QCvJLx1QHQ
— Oliya Scootercaster 🛴 (@ScooterCasterNY) May 31, 2026
The group has called for volunteers and has requested donations of gear intended to counter pepper spray and tear gas, like full-face gas masks, respirators, and “non-vented or tight-seal Goggles with at least an ANSI Z87.1+ high-impact rating.” REA NJ’s director, Ana Paola Pazmiño, donning goggles and a face mask, stood outside Delaney Hall following Sunday’s riot and said in Spanish, “we are going back every day.” She also complained that law enforcement was “using our resources, using all the taxes we pay” to suppress the unrest.
But REA NJ, which has long advocated for abolishing ICE and defunding the police, also enjoys the benefits of taxpayer funding.
The New Jersey Civic Information Consortium, a grantmaking nonprofit that aims to support local journalism to “meet the information needs of low-income communities and racial and ethnic communities,” has sent some $370,000 to REA NJ since 2022, accounting for roughly 40 percent of the anti-ICE group’s total revenue for that period. Nearly three-quarters of the consortium’s funding has come from the state of New Jersey, the group’s executive director, Lisa Sahulka, told the Free Beacon. For 2022, however, it was closer to 94 percent, according to an audit from that year.
Grants from the consortium have been earmarked for REA NJ’s Radio Jornalera NJ project, a Spanish-language network that gives “a voice to immigrant workers by amplifying their stories and needs,” and noted the outlet’s announcements on topics like “housing rights,” “workers’ rights,” and climate change.
Radio Jornalera NJ is effectively indistinguishable from REA NJ on social media. The network has been on the ground outside Delaney Hall, but its coverage has been far from neutral—it has actively participated in the protests, called for volunteers to join the cause, and amplified REA NJ organizers. Its Instagram posts of the protests and riots, which are consistently co-published with anti-ICE and other left-wing groups, include captions like “ICE OUT OF NJ! FREE THEM ALL” with a fist emoji and “The United People Will Never Be Defeated.”
“We’re still strong and more united than ever,” another caption reads. “The fight continues and we call on the community to join together, speak up and show solidarity with those who continue to resist inside and outside of Delaney Hall!”
Sahulka said the Civic Information Consortium “does not monitor or track the protest organizing activities of its grantees or affiliated organizations.”
“Some grantees are and/or may be affiliated with organizations that engage in advocacy work. However, Consortium funding is awarded only for the journalism, reporting, and information-sharing activities described in approved grant proposals. The Consortium does not fund advocacy activities and it does not direct, supervise, or exercise editorial control over reporting, content, or journalistic decisions,” she told the Free Beacon. “Our focus is on whether grant funds are used for the approved journalism and civic information purposes for which they were awarded.”
While REA NJ touts its “grassroots” bona fides, another quarter of its funding comes from fellow anti-ICE groups bankrolled by the left’s premier foundations and dark money networks. Since 2021, the group has taken in more than $205,000 from the National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON) and the National Domestic Workers Alliance (NDWA), tax filings show.
NDLON, which has called to “end all detention” and “abolish ICE,” has taken $4.3 million from the Ford Foundation between 2021 and 2025, including a $200,000 grant to “reverse the subordination of worker rights enforcement to immigration law enforcement.” It also received nearly $1.5 million from George Soros’s Open Society Foundations across 2021 and 2022, with one grant intended to “organize vulnerable immigrant workers.” A combined $722,000 came from Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors and the Soros-funded Tides network.
NDLON similarly operates a radio show called Radio Jornalera with several affiliates across the nation. The New Jersey station doesn’t explicitly state it’s among them, though it does share a nearly identical logo.
NDWA, meanwhile, has campaigned for legal protections for illegal immigrant workers and lobbied against immigration enforcement. Its funding includes nearly $18 million from Ford, with a $500,000 grant intended to “build public support for immigrant communities,” over $7.6 million from Rockefeller, almost $1.9 million from the Tides, and roughly $1.2 million from the MacArthur Foundation.
A Ford spokesperson said the foundation “has rigorous controls in place to ensure all grantees comply with Ford’s high standards and are in full compliance with the law.”
None of the other funding organizations responded to requests for comment.
REA NJ began challenging ICE well before the Newark protests escalated. The group says it believes “immigrant detention will finally end in New Jersey” and has “helped families stop nearly 90 deportations” since 2016. It also operates a hotline for Mercer County residents to report ICE activity so its trained respondents can intervene.
A lead organizer, Asma Elhuni, was arrested during one such operation in August. The Palestinian flag- and keffiyeh-toting activist was arrested again on Sunday for violating a curfew imposed over the Delaney Hall unrest. She also has ties to antisemitic groups—she serves as an organizer for American Muslims for Palestine’s New Jersey chapter and spoke at a 2024 conference held by the state chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
REA NJ isn’t the only anti-ICE group at Delaney Hall that’s benefited from tax dollars or left-wing support. The Civic Information Consortium gave $35,000 to Movimiento Cosecha Support Network in 2021. One of its activists, Jenny Garcia, has been moonlighting as a fundraiser—she’s also a spokeswoman for the Detention Watch Network, which has scored millions from the likes of Open Society, Ford, and Rockefeller and has redistributed funds to local groups for “anti-detention work,” the Free Beacon reported.
Neither REA NJ nor Cosecha responded to requests for comment.
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