AFT President Filmed Outside Newark Detention Center Calling Detention Despicable
The teachers union president spent Wednesday on camera beside a detention fence.
Summary
- On Wednesday, Oct. 7, 2026, Fox News reported that American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten drew backlash after a video showed her in a field near Delaney Hall, a migrant detention facility in Newark, calling immigration detention one of the most despicable things the current government does.
- In the video she said people who have not committed crimes are detained and deported in conditions she called unimaginable. A DHS spokesperson told Fox News Digital that any claim of subprime conditions at ICE facilities is false.
- The same spokesperson said rhetoric demonizing ICE officers has led to what DHS calls an over 8,000 percent increase in threats against its officers. A Jan. 8, 2026 DHS release used an 8,000 percent figure for death threats, alongside its own assault and vehicle-attack counts. That percentage is a department claim, not an outside audit.
- DHS told Fox that being in detention is a choice and that it is offering illegal aliens 3,000 dollars and a free flight to self-deport through the CBP Home app.
Commentary
Parents can see the job. It is a classroom. On Wednesday the president of the teachers union was in a field beside Delaney Hall, pointing at a detention center and calling the policy despicable.
Homeland Security answered the same day that the conditions claim is false, and repeated its own line about an over 8,000 percent rise in threats against officers. The January release that first carried an 8,000 percent death-threat figure did not hand the raw count to an outside auditor. Treat the percentage as DHS speaking, not as a census.
The concrete offer next to that claim is 3,000 dollars and a flight home through the CBP Home app. The camera was at a fence. The reading list is still at school.
Comments
She was on camera by the fence in Newark. I still check my kid reading score on Friday.
My dues are for contracts and classrooms. Wednesday video was a detention yard.
DHS says threats on officers are up over 8,000 percent. That number is theirs. The field video is on camera.
Delaney Hall is a detention center. A teachers union president does not have to be the one standing in the weeds.
Homeland Security says the bad-conditions claim is false. She called the conditions unimaginable. Parents can read both.
Three thousand dollars and a flight home is the offer on the table. A speech from the grass does not rewrite the statute.
