New Jersey sues to block ICE detention facility
New Jersey filed suit Friday to try to counter ICE’s plan to turn a massive warehouse in Roxbury into a detention center, saying the Trump administration is flouting immigration, environmental and procedural laws as it rushes to renovate the building.
The state said the warehouse was not the right place to hold inmates and the necessary construction would overburden local infrastructure.
“The Roxbury warehouse is a logistics center geared toward Amazon Prime packages, not people,” the state said in the lawsuit. “Among other things, it currently has a total of four restrooms, despite the anticipated influx of 1,500 detainees and hundreds of additional ICE employees.
New Jersey said U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement had already purchased the site and was seeking construction bids, despite opposition from state and local officials.
The state asked the judge to halt the project until Homeland Security completes an environmental study, gathers more feedback from local officials and considers alternative sites.
The Washington Times has requested comment from DHS on this story.
ICE’s planned expansion of its detention capacity has sparked conflicts with communities across the country.
A federal judge in Maryland halted a planned warehouse conversion in Williamsport, handing an initial victory to state officials who said the infrastructure could not accommodate the 1,500 inmates planned there.
New Jersey said ICE’s push to build its own facilities represents a marked departure from the past, when the deportation agency relied on renting space in state and local prisons, or in private prisons.
But ICE faces growing resistance from sanctuary policies restricting state and local contracts with the agency.
And now flush with cash thanks to last summer’s One Big Beautiful Bill, the agency has sought to increase its detention capacity by building its own facilities.
A February planning document said ICE wanted to create eight large-scale detention centers, 16 regional processing sites and 10 facilities where ICE already operates. The goal is to have a total of 92,600 beds available for ICE by November 30.
As of February 7, the latest data available, ICE had 68,279 detainees in custody.
Experts say increasing detention capacity is at the heart of any serious effort to increase deportations. If migrants are detained, their cases move more quickly and they can be expelled quickly.
On the other hand, those released can see their case drag on for more than a decade and flee.
Immigrant rights groups argue there are alternatives, such as surveillance.
ICE believes this is impractical given the large numbers involved. Some 1.6 million migrants in the communities are currently subject to deportation orders.
