Roxbury Ice Detention Center On Hold For Environmental Review

Colleen O’Dea, Senior Writer and Projects Editor (NJ Spotlight)

The plan to turn a Roxbury warehouse into an immigrant detention facility is on hold after federal, state and township officials agreed to require an environmental review. 

The agreement with the Department of Homeland Security came Tuesday morning just before a scheduled hearing in U.S. District Court in Newark. Lawyers for New Jersey and Roxbury are seeking to stop the Trump administration from converting the 470,000-square foot building into an Immigration and Customs Enforcement center for as many as 1,500 immigrants. 

Homeland Security will limit site work to security and property maintenance while it conducts the environmental review, according to the agreement. The state and other opponents have argued that such an assessment should have been done before the department bought the site. All sides are due back in court after the review is finished to determine whether the project should proceed. 

Warehouse opponents called the agreement a victory. Outside the courthouse, many in a group of about 100 protesters cheered when the deal was announced.

“This is pretty much exactly what we thought the best outcome of the hearing would be today,” said David Broderick, a retired lawyer and NJ Appleseed Public Interest Law Center board member who is working with the opponents. Homeland Security, he said, “would have lost there, they would have been humiliated — so they took the coward’s way out and they entered into the stipulation.” 

In a statement, U.S. Sen. Andy Kim (D-NJ) said: “This temporary pause proves what we already knew — DHS rushed this process without undertaking the proper legal reviews.” He said he would continue to press Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin “to abandon this project.”

ICE officials did not respond to NJ Spotlight News requests for comment. 

New Jersey is one of several states fighting to prevent the Trump administration from building ICE facilities. Maryland won an injunction against a new detention center with a judge allowing only security and maintenance, similar to the agreement on Tuesday. The attorneys general in Arizona and Michigan have sued to stop ICE warehouses. Officials in Social Circle, Georgia have been trying to stop a mega-center that could hold as many as 10,000 immigrants. 

Broderick said opponents will watch the site to ensure that ICE keeps to the agreement and “if they try to go 1 inch beyond what they’re allowed to do, there’s going to be hell to pay.” 

The environmental assessment should prove that the property is inappropriate, according to a joint statement from Gov. Mikie Sherrill, Attorney General Jennifer Davenport and Roxbury Mayor Shawn Potillo. If Homeland Security “continues to plow ahead after conducting its further analysis, we will return to Court to seek relief immediately,” they said.

Broderick said the agreement should delay the project by six months to a year. 

Homeland Security purchased the 109-acre property, which includes the vacant three-year old warehouse, in late February for $129 million, more than twice its assessed value. The department had planned to award a construction contract in March, and to send immigrants there starting in June.

On March 20, the state and Roxbury sued to stop the conversion of the warehouse, near Route 46 in Morris County, about 46 miles west of Manhattan. They argued that the federal government violated four federal acts that required an environmental review, the drafting of reports, the provision of notice to local officials and a process for getting their input. 

Local and state officials have argued that the site is unsuitable because of environmental concerns. Located in the Highlands region, the property is subject to tougher protection rules than elsewhere in the state. The property lacks sufficient water or sewer capacity, officials say, and traffic would overwhelm local roads. The township also stands to lose a ratable that pays $1.8 million in annual property taxes.

William Angus, co-founder of the No ICE North Jersey Alliance, or Project NINJA, which filed an amicus brief in the lawsuit, told the protesters in Newark that the legal pause is not reason to relax. 

“If anything, we step on the gas pedal,” he said. “This is a delaying action. We are putting a roadblock in front of DHS and ICE and they still have their objective to open up that facility. We have not won the fight in Roxbury until they sell that property back to some private business, pack up their tents and get the hell out of town.” 

This story was originally published by NJ Spotlight News through the NJ News Commons.