WASHINGTON, DC - Today, Congressmembers Rob Menendez (NJ-08), Bonnie Watson Coleman (NJ-12), and LaMonica McIver (NJ-10) led New Jersey House and Senate Democrats in calling on Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”) Secretary Kristi Noem to immediately abandon any plans to expand immigration detention in New Jersey.
The effort follows reports that DHS is considering opening a new Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”) detention facility in an industrial warehouse in Roxbury Township.
“Any expansion of immigrant detention in New Jersey, especially under warehouse conditions that are fundamentally inappropriate for human habitation, contradicts both the interests and values of our state,” the Members wrote. “We urge you to immediately cease any efforts to establish new detention facilities in New Jersey.”
“Families have been needlessly ripped apart, and local economies have suffered as the detention and deportation of immigrants disrupt local labor markets and strain small businesses,” the Members continued. “Compounding these harms, immigration detention facilities in New Jersey have become notorious for inefficiency and waste in addition to humanitarian failure. These failures have inflicted trauma both on detained individuals and on surrounding families, communities, and local governments who have been forced to grapple with the ongoing harms associated with immigrant detention.”
“As such, we strongly oppose any effort by DHS and ICE to pursue the use of warehouse facilities for immigration detention and demand that DHS immediately abandon any plans to expand detention capacity in New Jersey. We further request a full accounting of any site selection, contracting, or planning activities related to detention facilities in New Jersey,” the Members concluded.
New Jersey is home to more than two million immigrants who are essential to the state’s economy, workforce, and small businesses. Since President Trump took office, large federal detention contracts in New Jersey have produced unsafe conditions, unrest, escapes, and even deaths in custody. Rather than learning from these failures, DHS now appears poised to escalate them by detaining people in warehouses, which are facilities designed for storage, not human safety.
In May, Menendez, McIver, and Watson Coleman conducted a legally protected inspection of Delaney Hall, which led to national attention after the lawmakers were met by over 20 armed ICE and HSI agents, in an incident that led to the Trump Administration filing frivolous charges against Congresswoman McIver.
Congressman Rob Menendez has been a leader in the House of Representatives on oversight of immigrant detention centers. He has worked to ban private immigrant detention centers and led his colleagues in fighting the Trump Administration’s illegal restrictions on oversight of these facilities.
Last year, in response to reports that the Trump Administration was planning to expand immigration detention in New Jersey, Menendez led bicameral members of the New Jersey congressional delegation in opposing this expansion and demanding transparency. Since being sworn into to Congress in 2023, he has repeatedly calledfor the closure of all immigrant detention centers in New Jersey and has conducted several unannounced visits of Delaney Hall and the Elizabeth Detention Center. He has long advocated for the humane and dignified treatment of individuals in detention.
For full text of the letter, click here.?
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