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Arrests and an FBI call
On May 29, John Mark Rozendaal went to Delaney Hall, the immigration detention facility in Newark, New Jersey, after responding to calls on social media to gather outside as daily protests grew around a detainee hunger strike.
“John Mark Rozendaal was just trying to play music”
Rozendaal said he “consider music to be a de-escalatory thing to do” as he played his cello facing north on the concrete barricade, but New Jersey State Police and ICE agents issued a dispersal order and cleared protesters by force with chemical weapons and horseback charges.
Moments later, Rozendaal was arrested by the New Jersey State Police and charged with one count of obstructing law enforcement, and a week after that he received a call from the FBI.
Rozendaal told The Intercept that the agent said, “We’re calling because you were arrested at Delaney Hall,” and the agents asked whether he would provide information on protesters described as “anybody planning to go to Delaney Hall with not the right intentions.”
Calls to informants
Benjamin Van Meter, a deputy public defender with the Essex County Public Defender’s Office, told The Intercept that approximately 90 people have been arrested so far at the Delaney Hall protests and that at least half of those taken into custody received calls from federal agents seeking information.
Van Meter lodged a complaint with authorities, saying the FBI contact with his clients violated their constitutional rights, and The Intercept reported that the phone number used to contact Rozendaal is registered to the FBI’s New York field office and is posted online as an anonymous tipline.
Rozendaal said he rejected the offer immediately and invoked his right to remain silent when the agent attempted to question him further, ending the conversation.
Amol Sinha, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s New Jersey chapter, said, “With every major protest movement in United States history, there have been attempts at infiltration and attempts to disrupt them and to sow discord,” and he added that “The FBI has repeatedly been on the wrong side of history every time they’ve tried these tactics of infiltration.”
Rights, lawyers, and pressure
Sinha told The Intercept that it was important for anyone approached by federal agents to remember their right to remain silent and to ask for an attorney to be present for any questioning.
“John Mark Rozendaal was just trying to play music”
He said, “Unless the FBI produces a warrant, you have the right to refuse entry,” and also stated, “You certainly have the right to stay silent and to demand a lawyer.”
Samuel Becker, another protester facing local charges after an arrest outside Delaney Hall, told The Intercept that “The FBI would rather intimidate and punish the people protesting outside of Delaney Hall than investigate the physical, sexual, and psychological violence that ICE agents and their auxiliaries are inflicting on detainees across this country every day.”
Van Meter wrote a letter to Robert Frazer, the U.S. attorney for the District of New Jersey, and two high-ranking FBI officials in New York and New Jersey, demanding that the FBI stop their attempts to question his clients without an attorney present, and the Department of Justice did not respond to a request for comment.
