Major cannabis companies have donated millions to PACs aligned with President Donald Trump, according to the most recent Federal Election Commission filings. But the donations are not just a symptom of an increasingly pro-marijuana administration; they’re also indicative of an ongoing lobbying war between the marijuana, hemp and alcohol industries.

Over the past couple of months, four major marijuana companies — Verano, Curaleaf, Trulieve and Vision Management Services, a subsidiary of Green Thumb Industries — each gave $2.5 million to America First Agriculture Action Inc., a Trump-friendly super PAC. They weren’t alone in their donations. Ascend Wellness and Arboretum Bidco, two additional major cannabis companies, also gave $500,000 and $1 million to the PAC. Trulieve gave another $250,000 to the Republican Jewish Coalition Victory Fund, a pro-Israel super PAC. 

Taken together, these donations account for the vast majority of the $13 million that America First Agricultural Action Inc. has raised so far this cycle. 

Charles Gantt, who serves as the treasurer for Trump’s major super PAC, MAGA Inc., also serves as the America First Agriculture Action Inc.’s treasurer. Though the industry’s PAC is relatively new, filing its statement of organization in March, it’s already released ads praising Trump’s marijuana policy.

The pro-Trump (and pro-Republican) turn of major marijuana companies marks an odd twist of fate as some of the industry’s biggest players are embracing a party that has been historically hostile to liberalized drug policies like marijuana legalization. Notably, it’s also coming at a time when support for legalizing marijuana is sharply declining among Republican voters.

The main divide in cannabis in the United States comes down to the legal distinction between hemp and marijuana. Though both products are cannabis and are scientifically considered the same plant, they are distinguished legally. Hemp refers to cannabis containing less than 0.3% THC — the plant’s main active compound — by volume, whereas marijuana refers to cannabis with a higher THC concentration.

This minor biological difference has major regulatory implications as marijuana remains federally illegal and hemp has become de facto legal thanks to a provision in the 2018 Farm Bill. Despite the similarity of the products,  marijuana companies operating in states that have legalized the sale of marijuana face significantly higher regulatory and tax burdens than hemp companies. 

The situation is further complicated because the Trump administration has moved to reclassify marijuana as a Schedule III drug, which would keep it illegal, but remove some red tape around research and taxes. Similarly, the psychoactive hemp market is facing an existential threat following a provision slipped into a bill to reopen the government following last year’s government shutdown. 

The modification would close what was essentially a loophole created by the 2018 farm bill, which has allowed for the sale of psychoactive hemp products. This provision, however, won’t take effect until November, which has set off a flurry of activity in the recreational hemp industry to try and save their businesses, as well as proposed legislation that would keep hemp legal. 

The alcohol industry also has a stake in both the legal status of hemp and marijuana. Many in the alcohol industry see their cannabis counterparts as competitors, even as other alcohol companies have themselves entered the cannabinoid seltzer market. 

Joe Gerrity, the CEO of Crescent Canna, which sells hemp-infused seltzers, told Salon that from the hemp side of things, there’s the perception that “Republicans are a lot stronger.” This in part owes to the fact that hemp farmers often live in more GOP-leaning areas, but also because fewer red states have legalized marijuana. 

“The reality right now is [that] Congress isn’t getting anything done and the Trump administration has shown a willingness to move otherwise stagnant issues forward,” Gerrity said. “There’s no doubt it’s politically popular to embrace the cannabis industry from a party perspective, and frankly, it shocks me that we still haven’t seen a Democrat come out of the fold in a leadership position wholly embracing marijuana and pro-cannabis legalization.”

Ryan Hunter, the chief revenue officer at Spherex, a company that sells cannabis infused vape cartridges and other products, said that the current political landscape is shaped not only by the regulatory tangle, but by two individuals: Teulieve CEO Kim Rivers, advocating for the marijuana industry, and Howard Kessler, who champions the hemp industry.

“This is how Trump operates,” Hunter said. “You’ve got to grease the palms — whatever metaphor you want to use — and um so here we are. It’s not surprising to see these large amounts of money flowing into PACs that he’s in favor of. It’s just, unfortunately, how the game is played in this current era.”

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Hunter also called the lobbying a “sign of maturity” for the industry, which is a sentiment shared by other hemp and cannabis businesspeople interviewed by Salon. At the same time, he said, the fact that the same plant is treated legally differently in cases of recreational marijuana, marijuana grown at home, medical marijuana and hemp is a mess that needs to be cleaned up.

“We need to rationalize this,” Hunter said. “There’s no valid reason for the hemp industry to exist. You know, the amount of business that’s being done there, primarily around the beverages. I saw the other day that there were about 1.6  million cases of intoxicating hemp beverages sold last year. When you compare it to the number of cases of beer, which is around 2.5 billion, it’s de minimis.”

How regulatory changes happen, however, is a delicate issue. Josh Kesselman, Founder of RAW Rolling Papers, told Salon that “if Washington gets this wrong, reform could end up favoring the players who spend the most on lobbying while leaving small farmers, independent operators and the people who built this movement behind.”

“This plant should not be handed over to cannabis oligarchs who profit at the expense of everyone beneath them,” he said. “Any real reform has to protect access, protect small businesses, support research and move us closer to full normalization, not create a system where the culture gets pushed aside and the benefits flow only to insiders, lobbyists and billionaires.” 

Morgan Fox, the political director at the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, said he doesn’t see comprehensive reform that would bring all cannabis products under a single national regulatory framework in the immediate future.

Fox noted that this sort of legislation already exists, it just doesn’t have the support to pass. He attributed this in part to powerful prohibitionists, like gambling billionaire Miriam Adelson and the Sembler family, whose donations to conservative political causes dwarf those of either hemp or marijuana companies. 

“There’s certainly opposition from very, very powerful people within the Republican Party and within Congress that would make it very difficult to get any sort of legislation to the floor without severe pressure from the president,” Fox said. “I think that that’s relatively unlikely, at least in the near term, unless there’s a chance that it could potentially help him in the midterm.”

The post Big cannabis has cozied up to the GOP appeared first on Salon.com.

President Donald Trump is ramping up the war in Iran once again, but this escalation comes while the United States has comparatively fewer tools in its military arsenal — and to soften the war’s economic effects.

Since the total breakdown of the ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran in early July, the conflict has intensified, with the countries exchanging fire for 11 days straight, resulting in four American deaths. The total number of U.S. deaths since the war began in February now stands at 18, alongside nearly a hundred casualties, per reporting from the New York Times.

The escalation comes as the U.S. is in a weaker position than when it started, with historically low levels in the Strategic Petroleum Reserves, and with comparatively diminished military and diplomatic resources.

On Monday, the U.S. Department of Energy announced that the reserve fell to about 311 million barrels of oil over the previous week, the lowest level since March 1983. This happened as part of an ongoing tapping of the reserve that’s expected to conclude in mid-to-late August or early September. Pending a change in regulation, this will be the end of the line for releases from the reserve, which is required by statute to maintain a minimum inventory of about 250 million barrels of oil.

According to Max Pyziur, a director for transportation fuel and natural gas project at the Energy Policy Research Foundation, this drawdown is one of the major factors that has helped suppress the price of oil and gasoline in the United States since the start of the war.

Without the ability to rely on the reserve, Pyziur said he expects the government and oil companies to explore more alternatives to Middle Eastern oil, such as sources in Venezuela and Argentina, along with additional transportation options to get oil out of the region. While these alternatives are already being explored, new infrastructure will likely take years to come online, Pyziur said, which means Americans will have to deal with elevated prices.

“The tools are running out,” he said. “We only have so much time as far as strategic reserves. We could be in an extended period of time with a four-dollar handle on gasoline prices, five bucks for diesel. And if that continues, well, then that affects the economy, that affects expectations, and it might affect political outcomes if the Democrats are smart.”

Pyziur also noted that oil prices have been suppressed in part because China slashed its own imports of oil. A resumption to pre-war levels of imports could cause global oil prices to increase significantly, but there’s no guarantee that China would ramp up imports, he said. The country’s previous import levels were part of an effort to fill its own oil reserves, and even if it decides to resume them, there would be a limit to how much oil they could store.

But it’s not just American oil reserves that have diminished since the beginning of the war in February. The U.S. military’s own weapons stockpiles, including crucial drone and missile interceptors, were expended in the first period of the war. Remaining stockpiles of other munitions vary.

Anelle Sheline, a research fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft’s Middle East Program, highlighted that there are some questions as to whether Trump is even fully aware of current levels of munitions stockpiles, due to a reluctance among Pentagon leaders to deliver bad news to the president.

“The situation is significantly worse this time. But I don’t know that we’re sort of grappling with that. The average American again may think, ‘Oh, just another round of this stupid war, here we go again,’ it could really be much worse this time,” Sheline said. 

One potentially significant difference is the entry of the Houthis into the war, with the Iran-aligned group announcing a blockade of Saudi Arabia. While it remains to be seen how exactly the promised blockade could play out, the Houthis’ engagement represents a significant expansion of the war. 

The most consequential difference between now and when the war began, however, may be the degradation of trust in diplomatic efforts between the U.S. and Iran. This makes escalation more likely, Sheline said, which could result in attacks on infrastructure like desalination plants, which serve as a necessary water supply for parts of Iran, as well as the Gulf countries. 

“The Iranians may be less willing to engage diplomatically because they’ve been burned several times in the past,” she said. “The possibility of escalation, therefore, seems much more likely, the result then potentially being a truly devastating humanitarian impact, both for the Iranian population and for the Gulf population.” 

The post As Iran war escalates, U.S. is fighting from a weakened position appeared first on Salon.com.

Earlier this year, Daniel Sanchez-Estrada was sentenced to 30 years in prison for moving a box of zines. He was charged with corruptly concealing a document or record, one of the nine people convicted in the prosecution following last year’s noise demonstration at the Prairieland Detention Center near Dallas in northern Texas. Unlike the others convicted in this case, Sanchez-Estrada was not at the protest and maintains he had no role in its planning.

According to prosecutors, Sanchez-Estrada moved the zines at the request of his wife, Maricela Rueda, who attended the demonstration and was sentenced to 70 years in prison after being convicted of rioting, explosive charges and providing material support to terrorists. But no evidence was presented at trial regarding why Sanchez-Estrada moved the publications, which a defense committee has subsequently told Salon “was done entirely of his own accord and for his own reasons.”

The Prairieland case has been widely criticized for its application of terrorism charges against protesters. Sanchez-Estrada’s conviction, in particular, has been criticized for the harsh sentencing applied and his tangential connection to the protest. Ana Bell, the sister of Sanchez-Estrada, spoke with Salon about her brother’s case and what it means for free speech in Trump’s America.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity. 

How is your family holding up, and how has the trial and conviction impacted you and your family personally?

My brother Dez was the main caregiver for my parents, with him having the most flexible schedule. He could easily schedule his appointments for whenever my mom didn’t have a doctor’s appointment and stuff like that. We’re not complaining. They’re parents, and we love them. We want to take care of them. It did present a challenge that we weren’t expecting because he was the main person taking care of them.

My younger brother is a teacher, so he’s usually in a classroom. I opened a bookstore a couple of months ago, so I’m trying to run the business and everything. It’s been interesting with all of the things that we have to take care of. We were talking yesterday, I had to figure out how to deal with his taxes. He was detained, I have his power of attorney, and I’m just like, “Okay, so a lot of this stuff that is in the house, what is receipts, what is actually business expenses? Stuff like that is not something that one is expecting to do, and all of a sudden you have to take care of it, and it adds an additional layer of stress that wasn’t there before.

And that’s on top of the emotional roller coaster. You don’t know if this is the last conversation we will have for a while, because he could be moved to a different facility and then we have to figure out how to set up communications, how to set up his commissary. Like, would we be allowed to visit him in person? Is he even at a distance where we can drive to see him?

For example, this weekend, on Saturday, we were able to visit. My mom, dad and his stepdaughter. So he was able to see me and he was so happy that she was there. But then on Sunday, when it was my turn to go visit him, we showed up, and visitations had been canceled, so we didn’t get to see him on Sunday. Now we have to wait until next Saturday or Sunday, and hope that from here until then, he hasn’t been moved to a different facility, and we didn’t miss our chance to see him.

Sometimes he calls and we miss the phone call, or sometimes the number doesn’t work, and like you’re trying to press five to answer the call, and it just hangs up the call instead. It’s an emotionally-charged situation, even though it was just a phone call. It all adds up because right now, everything feels like an open wound that we have been trying to heal, and it’s not closing. Everything is fresh. Everything just gets harder.

Could you talk a little bit about how it feels having people on the internet trading incorrect information about your brother?

I’m not saying that these people have ill intent, but I do believe that words have a lot of power and the words we use to communicate can make a breakthrough.

Someone asked me in a comment if he had just printed the magazines, and someone would come and grab them from that house, and I was just like, “You have completely wrong information.” These were magazines that he bought. They weren’t 10 or 20 copies of the same magazine. They were one like one copy about freedom, one about the environment. They were materials that he read, and he critiqued.

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I think people just need to take a step back before making a statement and actually do a little bit of research because a lot of the information is just one Google away. You can go on the internet right now and look for all the evidence. It’s available. It has been unsealed. Once you have that in your hands, you can see all the information, not just what I say, not just what the government is saying.

I try not to spend a lot of time online doing this because, as I said, I do run a business. I have three kids. I’m a single mom. There is a lot of misinformation out there, and a lot of people are just running with it, kind of like a case of broken telephone.

Everything that’s happening right now, it’s very hurtful, very painful for our family. If I don’t check my emotions before I start talking with people, I could make it a bigger issue than it actually needs to be.

For me, it’s very important right now for people to understand that while my brother is the one who is in jail, and the government is not literally stating, “We are coming for your freedom of speech.” That’s exactly what is happening. He is just the vessel right now.

Could you speak a little bit about what it’s been like to witness this campaign from the government to paint your brother in this way? I think the idea that you could be convicted for what amounts to moving a box of your own magazines is a very foreign idea to most Americans.

It is very disturbing. I just opened a bookstore. So what are the odds that I literally have countless works right now in my store of examples of people who fought against fascism? I only sell fiction, but you have Katniss Everdeen in “The Hunger Games,” you have Harry Potter in Hogwarts, you have Thomas in “The Maze Runner.” You have all these characters that are literally standing up to oppression and fascism, and those who are in power and they show an amount of corruption that you think only happens in books.

We felt that the government was trying to make an example out of people who are not content with the current administration. Judge Reed, at my brother’s sentencing, said it. The state is trying to make an example to not encourage people with similar ideologies to follow this path. “The reason why you guys are getting this many years,” and this is me paraphrasing, “It’s because we’re trying to make an example.” He said the quiet part out loud, and it’s on the record.

This is the reason why I encourage people over and over to look at the court transcripts, listen to what the prosecution presented as their case, listen to what the defense attorneys were questioning and asking for and then see who told the truth by looking at the evidence that they’ve presented to you.

In my brother’s case, when you look inside the box, everything was dated prior to COVID. Even if you did not like the political observations of some of those magazines, essays, critiques, poetry or whatever was in ther, these are feelings from the people, and they’re protected under the First Amendment. You are allowed to feel how you want. You are allowed to feel that the current administration is the best one ever, and you’re allowed to tell that to people and not go to jail. But you’re also allowed to do the opposite and it still doesn’t earn you a sentence.

None of the stuff that was in there, whether it was for or against the government, was a crime or illegal to have, and it was not used to persecute anybody who took part in the noise demo, which my brother was not an attendee of.

My understanding is that you must commit a crime in order to be punished, right? It’s not because of what you think. It’s not because of what you read. It’s not because of what you have in your house. Even more absurd is that it’s not because of the paper magazines, books or pamphlets that you have in your house. That’s what is so incredibly disturbing to me.

What is your message to other people who might be critical of the current government, to would-be protesters?

If I could just give one word of advice to people, as a person who loves this country but doesn’t love what is happening right now, it would be to study the Constitution and fight for it. Listen to which political candidates right now are talking about freedom of speech or immigration issues. Ask yourself what things seem to be in jeopardy in our Constitution and find a way to make a change for those. I do not believe that staying quiet is the way to go. I also don’t believe violence is the answer. I do believe that we all need to speak up and defend and uphold the Constitution.

Why do you think the government decided to go after your brother? Assuming this conviction stands, there will be potentially profound implications for the First Amendment and who does and does not enjoy freedom of speech in this country.

I actually think that if he had been somebody else, it would have been the same thing. With him, I feel like the main reason why was that his wife was at the noise demonstration. She was arrested on July 4, and the government had a whole day to look into her and see who she was married to. He was arrested on Sunday, and they did a big production. I watched a video of his arrest.

I saw all the units that were surrounding him and asked, “What is this?” They came after him as if he were a terrorist, and all he had with him was a box of zines. At some point, they claimed it was explosives, but when they opened it, it was just paper. In the current political climate, anyone who has brown skin is low-hanging fruit. It’s someone who you expect to get lost in the system.

But the fact is that he’s an immigrant — an immigrant who has legal status in the county but an immigrant regardless. Right now, there is so much hateful and hurtful feelings towards immigrants that I feel he was just the perfect scapegoat. It changed the whole thought process of how they see him. They completely dehumanized him simply because of that.

For me, it just aligns so perfectly with everything that they were looking for in a “terrorist.” Even the beard. Some people were crazy about how he had a beard and said that he was in a sleeper cell and all this stuff. He’s a tattoo artist who loves cats. This is outrageous.

There are some headwinds in that this appeals to the Fifth Circuit and then the Supreme Court, both of which are very closely tied to the current administration and their view of the world. At the same time, these judges who handled the case, they do have a record of going too far, even for the Fifth Circuit, and so I’m wondering how optimistic you are about your brother being able to prevail through the legal system.

I wanted to believe that justice would be served. I wanted to believe that we would be bringing my brother [home], but the moment I heard the sentence for Autumn Hill and the reasons that the judge gave, the judge said that the sentence was not more than he thought was reasonable to give. That changed my perspective on that moment. I lost hope before we got to my brother’s sentencing. I lost hope because it didn’t make any sense. It didn’t make any sense from the legal point of view that they would receive this much punishment for something that was so minimal.

I don’t know how to feel. Part of me wishes that I could be hopeful again, because we’re gonna keep fighting regardless. I made the statement before that we’re probably going to spend every last minute of our lives trying to fight for his freedom, and that’s very unfortunate because he’s so young. They’re all so young, but they shouldn’t be behind bars. And I feel that the justice system is failing them, and it’s failing all of us. If the appeal doesn’t work, then it will be just like a failure in the justice system. I want to be hopeful, but I’m not holding my breath.

Do you think there is a chance of a potential political solution to this, or is there the political bravery out there to speak to this issue? I’ve spoken with people who have suggested that the next president should consider a pardon if they don’t prevail on appeal.

I don’t think the current administration will do it at all. But I would like to think that we will vote better next time, and that if we have not been successful with the appeal, or we’re still fighting this case, we could ask for a pardon.

So I’m hoping that if we end up having to go that route, we are able to ask for it and that it might be granted. I would like for the judicial system to actually do its part and be just.

The post Her brother was convicted of terrorism over a protest he didn’t even attend appeared first on Salon.com.

In Maine, sexual assault allegations against former Senate nominee Graham Platner prompted his abrupt exit from the race against Sen. Susan Collins. His departure has kicked off an impromptu race for the Democratic Senate nomination that could well be resolved before the convention even takes place, as campaigns make last-minute pushes to elect their preferred slate of delegates at the county level — and progressives believe they have the advantage.

In the primary election, Platner won 71% of the vote running on a progressive platform, including campaign finance reform, universal healthcare, ending mass deportations and ending billionaire welfare, among a broad slate of other policies. He also enjoyed the endorsement of prominent party leaders like Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass. However, his campaign was dogged by scandal, most notably including the revelation that he had a Totenkopf tattoo and allegations of “unsettling” behavior from past girlfriends. Platner also faced questions from fellow progressives regarding the time he spent employed as a security contractor associated with the mercenary force Blackwater.

Last week, Platner announced his withdrawal from the race, following an allegation of rape from a former girlfriend, Jenny Racicot. His exit from the race has, in turn, set off a flurry of political organizing from Democrats. The new nominating process will see the 16 county parties elect slates of delegates, 601 in total, who will in turn vote to select the new nominee at a July 25 convention in Bangor.

Ahead of this new process, a handful of candidates have gained the most traction, including Troy Jackson, the former president of the Maine Senate; Nirav Shah, the former principal director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; and Shenna Bellows, Maine’s Secretary of State. Significant attention has been paid to Jordan Wood, former chief of staff to former Rep. Katie Porter, D-Ca., brewery owner Dan Kleban and environmental policy consultant David Costello.

However, the upcoming convention will look more like the sort of nominating conventions that dominated party politics prior to the widespread adoption of the primary election nominating process. The organizing around the convention process looks different, too.

Whereas canvassing, mailers, rallies and TV advertising might rule in typical primaries, the short race ahead of the convention is currently focused on getting supporters to show up at the county-level delegate elections slated for July 18 and 19. To do this, campaigns have leaned on both digital ads and phonebanking, as well as pre-existing political relationships.

For example, the Shah campaign has been attempting to recruit former Platner supporters behind the scenes, while making clear publicly that they have a place in this campaign, according to Politico. Similarly, the group Our Revolution, which was founded as a way to carry forward the grassroots organizing behind Sanders’ 2016 presidential campaign, has thrown its organizing capacity behind Jackson’s candidacy.

The name of the game for the moment is for a candidate to get as many of their supporters at their respective county delegate elections as possible in order to elect the friendliest slate of delegates for their candidacy. The Jackson campaign, for example, has rolled out slates of delegates who promise to vote for Jackson at the convention in all of Maine’s counties.

One of the delegate candidates in Androscoggin County, Kiernan Majerus-Collins, who is also running for a state house seat, told Salon that he believes the current process benefits the four candidates — Jackson, Shah, Bellows and Wood — who already had campaigns in 2026, as well as those who already have connections in Maine politics. Considering Jackson and Bellows have the most experience in Maine politics, it likely means they’ll have a leg up, according to Majerus-Collins.

“Troy and Jenna have decades of relationships with those people that Dr. Shah, Wood and Kleban just don’t have,” Majerus-Collins said. “And it’s not to say that the political newcomers can’t make their case and don’t have a chance to win. They absolutely do, but it absolutely is going to be helpful to the candidates who are more familiar to the 600 most politically connected Democrats in the state.”

Majerus-Collins added, however, that there are some complicating factors in the race as well. For example, while Jackson’s campaign is rolling out slates of delegate candidates, not every campaign is. And, though many delegate candidates are explicitly running on the basis of supporting a specific Senate candidate, others are running on a promise to use their best judgment at the convention, or on pre-existing political relationships with their communities. The races are also crowded. In Androscoggin County, 188 candidates put their names forward for just 31 county delegate roles.

“A lot of the delegate candidate statements are something like, ‘Susan Collins is terrible, and it’s very important to defeat Susan Collins,’ which, from just a perspective of someone voting, is not that useful,” Majerus-Collins said.

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John “Jak” Raymond, a delegate candidate in Hancock County, also underlined how the county delegate electorate differs from the primary electorate. Maine runs what are called semi-open primaries, in which unaffiliated voters can choose to vote in either major party’s primary. This nominating process, however, will include only Democrats who were registered with the party as of June 9.

“He found a way to pull those woods hippies out of the woods, and if we can keep them moving out of the woods, then that’s what’s needed, because we’re a purple state and it’s only becoming more purple every year,” Raymond said in an interview with Salon.

Jackson, in Raymond’s view, stands the best chance of keeping the coalition that supported Platner in the primary together, mostly because his platform has the most in common with what Platner ran on.

“Troy, I think, is the strongest. He’s got six years as president of the Maine Senate and another four years serving before that, so he has the tools and he knows the system,” Raymond said. “But he’s also a progressive with a platform that pretty much mirrors Platner’s, and Platner grew the grassroots.”

The post Maine progressives hold edge in race to replace Graham Platner appeared first on Salon.com.

While the hunger and labor strike at the Delaney Hall immigration detention facility in New Jersey ended weeks ago, conditions within the facility have not improved, and may be even worse than before the strike there. Now, policies are seemingly directed at obscuring conditions in the for-profit facility operated by The GEO Group.

In May of 2025, Delaney Hall, which operated as a holding facility for those picked up by Immigration and Customs Enforcement from 2011 to 2017, was recommissioned to support President Donald Trump’s mass deportation agenda. On May 22, detainees at Delaney Hall launched a hunger and labor strike at the facility, capturing national attention to what they described as inhumane conditions in the facility. In particular, detainees described unsanitary, moldy or spoiled food and mistreatment by guards. The strike led to significant protests outside the Newark, New Jersey, detention center, and high-profile clashes between protesters and the guards there as well as a frenzy of attention from the national press.

On June 22, advocates for detainees there said that the strike had ended, though not because conditions had improved, but rather because the facility and the Department of Homeland Security had adopted a tactic of frequently transferring detainees between facilities, which effectively broke the ability of detainees to organize themselves within the facility.

Volunteers at an aid tent maintained by local religious groups and organizers say that conditions at the facility have not improved, and may even be getting worse for some, based on conversations with released detainees and their families.

Haydee Colon Hernandez, a pastor at Saint John’s Lutheran Church in Summit, New Jersey, relayed one story in which guards seemingly retaliated against a man in a wheelchair following a conversation between the detainee and Sen. Andy Kim, D-N.J., in which she says guards told the man, “Do you think that just by talking to the senator you’re going to be released?”

“If you want to tell a guy that is in a wheelchair, ‘Stand up when I’m talking to you,’ that’s really abuse. He said, ‘I wasn’t able to get up. I’m in a wheelchair,’” Hernandez said.

Other complaints include persistently low-quality food, isolation within the facility, and frequent transfers between Delaney Hall and other facilities, which serve to prevent organizing in the detention center. One volunteer also described a new system adopted, in which new detainees, often there for shorter periods of time, are kept away from longer-term detainees. Those who are held for shorter periods of time also describe better conditions upon release than other detainees who are held for longer periods. Other volunteers said that the families of detainees have been intermittently encouraged not to discuss conditions in the facility after visits to their family members.

In response to a request for comment from Salon, an ICE spokesman denied any allegations of “subprime conditions or overcrowding” at Delaney Hall.

“All detainees are provided with proper meals, water, medical treatment, and have opportunities to communicate with their family members and lawyers. We offer everything a traditional ICE detention facility offers, including access to free legal services and a law library, a variety of reading materials detainees can borrow in our library, recreational space and religious accommodations. All detainees receive full due process,” the spokesperson said.

The frequent transfers between facilities is one of the most important developments since the strike, according to Sally Pillay, the director of the Mami Chelo Foundation, and one of the lead organizers at the aid tent, which provides assistance to both families visiting the facility and those released.

“ICE has really escalated in kidnapping people out in the community,” Pillay said. “So every day, hundreds and hundreds of people are being brought into the facility, and every day, hundreds and hundreds of people are being moved out.”

Pillay theorized that the frequent transfers, alongside preventing organizing within the facility, also make it harder for detainees to file habeas corpus petitions, which is a legal mechanism that allows detainees to challenge their detention in court.

Pillay, who has spoken with hundreds of detainees and their families, said that detainees are typically woken up around 1 a.m. for transfers, and that the transfer bus will leave anywhere between 4 a.m. and 10 a.m.

Gabriela Soto, the wife of Martin Soto, a leader of the hunger strike, recalled her experiences with ICE attempting to move her husband from Delaney Hall, which was ultimately successful.

“I saw my husband being thrown into a van from the ramp inside, going into the visiting chapel, two ICE agents grabbed my husband by his ankles and his wrists and threw him in the van. I just hate to see — or to understand why they will do these things,” Soto said in an interview with Salon.

Martin Soto was in Delaney Hall from February until late May, and according to Soto, he was transferred to the Elizabeth Detention Center in New Jersey around 2 a.m. on May 25.

Other volunteers said that it has been harder to gauge what is happening at the facility from the outside due to the disassembly of the so-called “First Amendment” area, which blocked off traffic in the lane of Doremus Ave. closest to Delaney Hall. Before the disassembly, they said they could often hear commotion and sometimes screams from inside the facility, potentially owing to alleged instances where guards pepper-sprayed and beat detainees with batons.

Delaney Hall is not the only detention facility plagued by allegations of abuse. A recent report from Human Rights Watch and the American Civil Liberties Union found that detainees at the Camp East Montana detention center were forced to endure filthy conditions, fed inedible meals and denied medical care. Detainees also described frequent beatings. DHS denies those allegations.

DHS, in response to a request for comment, also claimed that they provide comprehensive medical care to everyone in ICE custody and that ICE maintains a “zero-tolerance policy for all forms of assault involving individuals in ICE custody.”

“ICE takes every allegation of misconduct seriously and is committed to holding perpetrators fully accountable. Protecting the rights and safety of those in our care is a top priority. This includes safeguarding against abuse by staff, contractors, volunteers, or other detained individuals,” the DHS spokesperson said.

Kathy O’ Leary, a mainstay at the aid tent who works with Pax Cristi, spoke with Salon both during and after the strike and noted that visitation has been much more restricted since the strike began in May, and as tensions escalated throughout June.

For example, visitors were once allowed to wait in an indoor air-conditioned room and are now expected to wait for visitation in an outdoor seating area inside of a chain link fence near the gate of the facility. Inside the facility, there are other issues with heat. For example, during a dangerous heat wave in early July, air conditioning in one section of the facility also went down.

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O’Leary cited persistent issues with transparency at the privately owned for-profit detention center as well. If a legislator is visiting for an inspection, they are now required to present privacy waivers for each detainee they want to speak with, which must be signed by the detainee. However, visitors aren’t allowed to bring the papers with them when they visit family in detention, meaning that the only chance detainees have to sign the papers is during a weekly visit to a nearby law library. O’Leary said that the aid tent keeps these papers on hand, but even the volunteers and organizers there needed assistance from legislative aides to ensure they were filled out correctly, and that language barriers can prove a challenge for detainees and their families.

“They’re a little confusing. We have them here in the tent. They’re a little confusing for even for us to figure out. We’ve had to ask the legislative aides for help,” O’Leary said.

Separate from the aid tent, protests at the facility persist, with a grassroots group of activists maintaining a mutual aid table of their own near the detention center. One protester who goes by Basher, and has become a fixture of the protest efforts, said that even though the cameras have left, protests at the facility continue, with between 20 and 30 protesters showing up most nights. In recent days, however, owing to recent killings by ICE in Basher’s view, ICE and guards have been more reluctant to clash with protesters.

In recent weeks, immigration enforcement officers have shot and killed two people: Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Texas and Johan Sebastian Guerrero in Maine. In Florida, another yet-to-be-identified man was killed after being struck by a semi-truck in Florida while fleeing ICE.

The post At Delaney Hall, the struggle persists after cameras left appeared first on Salon.com.