NJ To Get Largest Immigrant Detention Site On East Coast?

By Benjamin J. Hulac
Washington Correspondent For the NJ Spotlight News

WASHINGTON — National immigration agencies have approval to use a New Jersey military base to detain a minimum of 1,000 immigrants, a number that could swell to 3,000, under a new plan that could turn the base into the largest immigrant detention hub on the East Coast.

The plan grants two federal agencies, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Customs and Border Protection, use of an airfield at the base for “up to two ICE or CBP contracted commercial aircraft and crews at a time” to remove detainees, records show.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth approved the plan to expand Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, according to correspondence between the Pentagon and the Department of Homeland Security, records NJ Spotlight News obtained Wednesday.

A letter from the Pentagon dated July 15 indicates ICE and government contractors would be present on the base.

Hegseth also cleared the Department of Homeland Security to use two other military sites: Camp Atterbury in Indiana and the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

NJ anchor site

Targeting a goal to deport 1 million immigrants in a year, the Trump administration has launched the largest mass-deportation sweep in U.S. history, and the joint base would serve to anchor those plans in the Northeast.

The Pentagon told members of Congress last week the joint base would be used to hold detainees. But more details were not publicly known and members on armed services committees, as of this week, were awaiting briefings about how the base would be used.

Members said it was unclear why the New Jersey and Indiana bases were picked.

‘You have folks who are being held there without due process, who are being detained there for as much as a traffic infraction or no infraction at all.’ — Rep. Andre Carson said, referring to people detained at Camp Atterbury, Indiana.

“We have no information on that,” Rep. Donald Norcross (D-1st), a member of the House armed services committee, said in an interview Tuesday with NJ Spotlight News. “I’m expecting to get information but I have heard of nothing from DoD or Homeland to suggest that there’s a briefing coming up shortly.”

In the late 1990s, the joint base housed refugees fleeing violence in Kosovo. Then in 2021, the site took in Afghan refugees. “This is a very different use,” Norcross said.

Rep. Herb Conaway (D-3rd), whose district includes some of the base, said the Trump administration has provided little information about what’s happening on-site.

Checkered history

Under Democratic and Republican administrations, ICE detention sites have a checkered record on safety, food and medical treatment for the people incarcerated in them, according to independent investigations.

A report released Monday by Human Rights Watch, the advocacy group, found staff at ICE sites in Florida routinely denied detainees medical care, access to personal hygiene and adequate food.

“We had to bend over and eat off the chairs with our mouths, like dogs,” Harpinder Chauhan, a British entrepreneur ICE detained at an immigration appointment, said. He was held at a site in Miami.

Those sorts of activities on the base would undercut military operations, Conaway said. “If the kind of atrocious behavior that’s occurred there occurs on our bases, I can’t see how it’s not going to negatively impact the morale,” he said.

Lawmakers who have visited ICE sites say detainees are often denied access to legal counsel. “Those are violations of rights that everyone has, whether you’re a citizen or not,” Conaway said.

Rep. Andre Carson, a Democrat from Indiana, said it’s unclear why the Trump administration is using the base in his home state.

“We don’t want this to be a detainment facility,” Carson said in an interview Wednesday with NJ Spotlight News. “You have folks who are being held there without due process, who are being detained there for as much as a traffic infraction or no infraction at all.”

Unnamed Pentagon spokesperson

In response to questions about how the sites in New Jersey and Indiana would be used, a Pentagon spokesperson who would not disclose their name said the U.S. was establishing “temporary soft-sided holding facilities” at the New Jersey and Indiana locations.

“The timeline for these facilities will depend on operational requirements and coordination with DHS,” the person wrote in an emailed statement.

Overall, ICE, typically through private prison contractors, operates more than 150 detention sites nationwide.

The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to questions about its presence on Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst or if immigrant detainees were already being held on the base, which includes a federal prison.

A spokesperson for Rep. Chris Smith (R-4th), whose district includes part of the base, did not respond to a request for comment.

Private contractors

Overall, ICE, typically through private prison contractors, operates more than 150 detention sites nationwide. Two of those sites, Delaney Hall in Newark, which holds 1,000 beds, and the Elizabeth Detention Center, are in New Jersey.

NJ can’t block private immigrant detention centers, judges ruleThe Pentagon correspondence shows the U.S. government plans to contract out at least some operations on the joint base.

“ICE staff and contractor personnel supporting ICE will be responsible for all care and handling of IAs, including supervision, supervisory/directive security responsibilities, meals, clothing, medical screening, routine medical services, and transportation,” it reads. IA is shorthand for “illegal aliens.”

A federal court struck down part of a state law Tuesday that banned private prison companies from reaching contracts with the U.S. government for facilities in New Jersey.

Federal agencies are in line to receive $170 billion for the administration’s hard-line anti-immigration agenda through a new law, which allocates $45 billion to build new ICE detention sites.

The public is starting to realize the administration is pursuing people who are often not hardened criminals, said Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-10th).

“People have been lied to. They’ve been bamboozled. They know that regular, hard-working people who are here in our country, some of them working towards citizenship, some of them seeking asylum, some of them who are here officially because the previous administration has given them the right to be here, are being targeted,” McIver said in an interview with NJ Spotlight News.

“The idea of them being excused from due process, from being treated wrong and to be put into cages and jails that are inhumane,” McIver said. “Americans do not like that.”