Conditions had been disintegrating for days inside a massive immigration detention center in an industrial corner of Newark.

Meals had been erratic at the privately run facility that last month began holding migrants facing deportation. Some detainees were sleeping on floors. And the water available from faucets was sometimes scalding or foul tasting.

Several dozen men in Unit 5, on an upper floor of the jailhouse known as Delaney Hall, had grown frustrated. And after returning Thursday afternoon from a first-floor cafeteria, where they said they had been given slices of bread in place of a meal, they began covering security cameras and smashing at walls and windows.

Two security guards stationed in the unit retreated, and some of the detainees pushed the door closed.

By the time the disruption was over, four men had escaped.

This account of events before and after the escape is based on interviews with several immigration lawyers who spoke to clients at Delaney Hall during the melee and more than a dozen people who had conversations with loved ones who called from inside the jail, pleading for help. On Friday, Senator Andy Kim and Representative Rob Menendez, both Democrats from New Jersey, offered additional details after touring the facility and speaking with federal officials and representatives from GEO Group, the private company that runs the 1,000-bed jail.

The tumult raised urgent questions about the living conditions inside the detention facility and others like it across the country as President Trump ramps up immigration arrests, filling to capacity many detention centers that, together, are holding about 51,000 migrants nationwide.