ICE facility in Elizabeth Becomes Center of Protest at Kean

By: Ruben Nieves|Published by March 17, 2021

A protest group is calling for Kean to end its relationship with two longtime supporters of the university because of its business connection to a controversial ICE facility in Elizabeth that has been accused of mistreating immigrant detainees.

About 12 protesters, which included Kean students and alumni, held a rally on March 2 at the campus calling for Kean to remove Dave Gibbons from the university’s board of trustees and take away the title of his mother, Anne Evans Estabrook, as vice chair of Wenzhou Kean University in China. 

Estabrook and her son Gibbons run the family-owned  Elberon Development Group, which leases the ICE detention facility in Elizabeth to CoreCivic, which runs private prisons and detention centers. 

Estabrook serves as the chairman of the Elberon company and Gibbons holds the title of President and CEO.

The rally organizers have also started a petition on change.org that has over 1,500 signatures. 

CoreCivic is a $1.98 billion publicly held company that contracts with the government, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), to run private prisons and detention centers. Core Civic is traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol CXW. 

“It’s deeply disheartening that Kean University has leadership profiting from the immigration  system that has destroyed and separated families in the Kean community,” the petition states. 

The group said detainees rights are being violated and that during the pandemic they were not protected from COVID-19. They said there was no social distancing and no masks were provided. 

According to insidernj.com, the Elizabeth detention center “is known for immigrant suffering and death for 27 years.” Insidernj.com is a website that provides daily news throughout New Jersey. 

“We have a lot of Kean students and alumni and community members, so almost 1,500 people are saying they want Estabrook and Gibbons off the board,” Emma Yorra, a Union county resident who was also an organizer of the rally said.

The protesters began at Green Lane and Morris Avenue, and marched to Kean Hall where the office of the college president is located. President Lamont Repollet walked outside the building to see the protesters, according to video footage. 

Dr. Repollet went outside to talk to the protesters and told them that his focus since becoming president at Kean has always been on equity, safety, and academic safety for all students, according to Stacey Callahan, co-organizer of the rally and a Kean alumnae. 

“It is important to listen with respect to all voices on important issues facing our university community, our state and our country,” Repollet said  according to a video of the event. “It remains my focus and that of the Board of Trustees.”

A box with the petition was left outside of Kean Hall, as the protesters were not allowed to enter. Dr. Repollet came outside, retrieved the box and addressed the protesters. He said he would make the situation known and that he would talk to the board about the concerns of the protesters. 

Callahan and Yorra hope to get more signatures and more attention paid towards their cause.

“The petition was created in the summer of 2020. We were planning to attend the board meeting for Monday,” said Callahan. “We’ve been going to board meetings and we made it an event and are hoping to attend the next board meeting.”

Both Callahan and Yorra, as well as other protesters also spoke out in March during the Board of Trustees meeting. 

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