Cory Booker showed up at a Newark ICE detention facility this week with cameras rolling and a story about horrific conditions.
Jesse Watters watched the whole performance and figured out who was really getting paid.
What he said on The Five left one Democrat at the table with nothing to say — and DHS just confirmed every word of it.
Jesse Watters Calls Out the ICE Hunger Strike Hoax on The Five
Lawyers for detainees at Delaney Hall in Newark, New Jersey claimed the ICE detention facility was serving maggot-ridden food, denying medical care, and operating under inhuman conditions — the full horror-story package.
The facility was portrayed as modern day Soviet gulag by Democrats and their media allies.
Democrat politicians lined up at the gate.
New Jersey Governor Mikie Sherrill showed up demanding access and calling it a constitutional crisis when ICE said no.
Sen. Andy Kim got himself pepper-sprayed and posted about it on X.
Reps. Jerry Nadler, Dan Goldman, and Adriano Espaillat staged a congressional tour and called conditions "inhumane."
Jesse Watters watched all of it and knew exactly what he was looking at.
"They are getting more healthcare than they have ever gotten in their lives," Watters said on The Five. "They get around the clock mental health care, dental care, medical care, and they get three squares."
As for the maggot story — Watters didn't buy a word of it.
"There's no maggots," he said. "That was made up by lawyers who we pay for."
Taxpayer-funded immigration lawyers manufacture a media-ready crisis, leak it to sympathetic reporters, deploy the Democrat congressional cavalry, and bill more hours when the story blows up.
"This is a ruse by immigration lawyers that are paid for by the taxpayer so they can create a drama to bill more," Watters said. "They leak it to the press. They send Cory Booker out there. And it becomes a whole thing where they get paid more."
Watters shut down liberal co-host Jessica Tarlov with one line: "It's not EPCOT, Jessica. It's an ICE detention facility."
Booker, Nadler, and CNN show up — and the lawyers collect.
Markwayne Mullin Denies Delaney Hall Hunger Strike and Newark Democrats Erupt
DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin went on record at a cabinet meeting Wednesday and said only a "handful" of detainees had refused to eat — and that they did so because they wanted their "ethnic right food."
"Well, they can go back to their country and get whatever food they want," Mullin told reporters. "This isn't Holiday Inn."
DHS acting Assistant Secretary Lauren Bis put it more bluntly: "There is NO hunger strike at Delaney Hall. There are NO subprime conditions or abuse at the facility." She called the protests nothing more than a fundraising stunt by New Jersey sanctuary politicians.
Republican state Rep. Paul Kanitra then handed Democrats a detail they hadn't counted on.
The food service provider at Delaney Hall is the same company that caters the $150,000 to $500,000 luxury suites at MetLife Stadium.
"It seems to be good enough for those guys," Kanitra told Fox News Digital, "so I assume it's good enough for our illegal invaders behind us."
DHS confirmed detainees receive three daily meals reviewed by certified dietitians, along with clothing, bedding, toiletries, phones to reach family and lawyers, and full medical, dental, and mental health services.
"ICE has higher detention standards than most U.S. prisons that hold actual U.S. citizens," the agency said.
During COVID in 2020, ICE called out a "coordinated campaign" of false hunger strike reports spreading across multiple facilities simultaneously — fake news releases and anonymous tips flooding newsrooms coast to coast at the same time.
Delaney Hall follows that template exactly.
DHS put the sanctuary city angle on the record — local New Jersey police refused ICE's calls for backup during the protests.
Kanitra summed up Sherrill's gate appearance as "a performative stunt to try to change the focus from their policies, which have created this chaos."
The Democrats created the border crisis that filled Delaney Hall.
Now they're throwing temper tantrums in front of the building they filled.
Sources:
- Charles Creitz and Peter Pinedo, "GOP Lawmaker Slams Democrats Over ICE Detainee Conditions at NJ Facility," Fox News, May 27, 2026.
- Staff, "Latest on Newark ICE Detention Facility Protests," Fox 5 New York, May 27, 2026.
- Staff, "Delaney Hall ICE Facility: What's Causing Clashes Between Protesters and Federal Officers?" NewsNation, May 27, 2026.
- Staff, "Markwayne Mullin Goes Off on Dems' 'Garbage' Memorial Day 'Political Stunt' at ICE Facility," Fox News, May 27, 2026.
- Staff, "New Jersey Senator Dares DHS to Pepper-Spray Him Again as Mullin Slams 'Political Theater,'" Fox News, May 29, 2026.