Photojournalist hit with pepper balls at New Jersey immigration protest

Freelance photojournalist Tom Hudson was struck by multiple police projectiles and forced to dodge a tear-gas canister while covering a protest against Immigration and Customs Enforcement and its treatment of detainees in Newark, New Jersey, on May 30, 2026.

Protests outside the Delaney Hall immigration detention facility began May 22, when many detainees went on a hunger strike. Members of Congress, state and local lawmakers and rights groups have alleged dire conditions at the facility.

Federal officers responded to the protests with chemical irritants, physical force and arrests, as did state police in the days that followed. The Department of Homeland Security has denied allegations of detainee mistreatment.

Hudson did not respond to requests for comment from the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker. However, on the podcast “A Thousand Natural Shocks,” he described his experience during the May 30 protest.

According to Hudson, the demonstration was largely peaceful despite the presence of counterprotesters earlier in the day.

“People were not being violent,” Hudson said. “People were being disobedient; they weren’t staying in their designated protest zones.”

After sunset, he said the atmosphere shifted. Police officers moved to push metal barricades farther from the detention center, prompting some demonstrators to resist. Hudson said a busload of state police soon arrived, some of which drove their patrol vehicles into the crowd in an attempt to disperse protesters. They then deployed concussion munitions, tear gas and pepper balls as mounted state patrol officers pushed through the crowd.

Hudson said he hung back to photograph the scene. As a police line advanced, he turned and began walking away. Moments later, he heard a tear-gas grenade strike the ground at his feet and explode. Almost immediately, pepper balls slammed into his body armor, he recalled on the podcast.

“Like, are you being serious right now?” Hudson said. “I’m walking away, my vest, it’s got a giant placard on it that says ‘press,’ got my big cameras. It’s like it was fun for them.”

The New Jersey State Police Office of Public Information did not respond to an emailed request for comment.

In a statement posted to X early May 31, New Jersey Attorney General Jennifer Davenport wrote that state and local law enforcement had responded to “aggressive actions” outside Delaney Hall. She also announced that a curfew would be in place around the facility until further notice. It did not address the use of force against members of the press.

While covering other Delaney Hall protests, Hudson was also pushed with a metal fence and shoved over a concrete barrier.