Secret Signal chats reveal how anti-ICE activists coordinated protests in Newark

Protests in recent weeks outside the Delaney Hall immigration detention center in Newark, N.J. have made the facility a major focus of the immigration debate. Now, an investigation reveals that behind the violent protests there is a broad organizational structure that has been building for years.

According to the report by Fox News, the June 3 call for action on social media was accompanied by intense activity on private Signal groups, an encrypted messaging app used by activists to coordinate transportation, logistics and supplies for the protests.

The research, drawn from on-the-ground observations, private chat room conversations, strategy documents, tax returns and social media posts, concludes that the demonstrations are not solely in response to a spontaneous reaction to federal immigration policies. Fox News argues that they are part of a broader strategy driven by a network of organizations operating around immigrant advocacy and opposition to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

According to the media outlet, nearly 100 organizations are directly or indirectly involved in Delaney Hall-related activities. These include civil rights advocacy groups, progressive organizations and leftist movements. Collectively, these entities report annual revenues of close to $825 million.

The story also describes how, hours before some demonstrations, participants used Signal groups to organize rides from different points in New Jersey and New York, coordinate medical assistance and distribute protective materials.

Among the messages reviewed by the media outlet were requests for carpools, water and food distribution, as well as lists of supplies that included protective eyewear, respirators and pepper spray decontamination kits.

Chuck Flint, a former U.S. Senate chief of staff and nonprofit specialist, believes the protests are in response to long-term planning.

"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," he said.

Flint also asserted that these organizations "act like military battalions with the ability to overwhelm a city's public safety resources"

The investigation traces the origins of this network to 2025, when GEO Group announced the reopening of Delaney Hall as a federal immigration detention center under contract with ICE. Since then, local activists began holding vigils and protest activities that eventually evolved into organized structures of observation, community mobilization, and political pressure.