A four-year-old girl was barred from entering a New Jersey detention centre to visit her father, with security guards citing her leggings as 'provocative'. The incident, recounted by her mother, Gabriela Soto, is the latest in a series of denials of entry at Delaney Hall, a facility currently under intense legal and public scrutiny.
Soto's husband has been held at the Delaney Hall immigration facility in Newark since January. SpeakingtoTheGuardian, Soto revealed that her family has been turned away more than ten times, often citing clothing choices that fall well outside the facility's own published standards. On one occasion, the rejection was based on her 11-month-old baby's onesie. On another, it was the leggings her preschooler wore.
The facility's published dress code states that it applies only to visitors aged 12 and over, yet families report that much younger children are being turned away.
Soto said when she asked why her children's clothes were not allowed, guards described them as too 'provocative'. 'How is that provocative if she's only four years old?' she said of her daughter. The word is her recollection of what staff told her at the gate, and the centre's operators did not respond to questions about it.
The cruelty her family describes goes beyond clothing. On her daughter's fourth birthday, Soto brought her to Delaney Hall to celebrate with her father, and the girl carried a drawing she had made for him.
Guards refused to let the paper inside, and when Soto handed it over for inspection, she says they tore it up in front of the child, who burst into tears. 'She was destroyed,' Soto said, adding that she now keeps to herself during visits and avoids looking at anyone to escape further trouble.
The written code reads much like a prison's. It bans form-fitting or revealing clothing, open-toed shoes, leggings, pants with holes, and even a T-shirt worn without a bra, as well as undefined 'gang colours'.
Since the centre opened in May 2025, guards have turned back families who travelled from as far as Texas over leggings, Crocs, heels, dresses and shorts. In practice, visitors say enforcement changes from guard to guard and shift to shift, leaving families unable to predict what will get them turned away.
One mother, Valeria, said she had been rejected roughly ten times while visiting her baby's father, telling the paper, 'I could wear these pants for a week, and out of nowhere, they're like, you cannot come in this.'
A 16-year-old visiting her detained brother was refused entry for wearing a knee-length school dress that the code expressly permits. Crocs, closed-toe sandals and heels are turned back so often that activists keep a growing pile of borrowed shoes by the gate. On one occasion, a woman drenched in the rain watched two guards openly argue over whether her heels broke any rule at all.
Source: International Business Times UK
