The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has decided to move forward with converting a massive warehouse in Roxbury Township, New Jersey, into an immigration detention center, New Jersey state attorneys told a federal judge in a court filing on Friday, November 6 — a decision the state says may violate a court order that has frozen most work at the site since May.
Source: Jersey Vindicator
The disclosure followed a November 6 report that the department had entered into a $31.8 million contract with a private company to convert the warehouse. It is the first time the department has acknowledged in court that it intends to pursue the project, after months of telling the court and the state that no decision had been made.
Opponents moved quickly. The No ICE in North Jersey Alliance, known as Project NINJA, announced on Monday that it will hold a rally at the Rockaway Mall at noon on Saturday, November 14, to oppose the plan for the 470,000-square-foot warehouse on Route 46 in Roxbury, in Morris County. The group also scheduled a public call for Tuesday, November 10, to brief residents on the proposal.
“Enough is enough,” said Birdie Green, a co-founder of Project NINJA, in a statement. “When will this rogue agency face consequences? How far past our checks and balances will they be allowed to go before they are stopped? This needs to end now.”
How the contract surfaced
Project Salt Box reported on November 6 that the contractor is SK2 LLC, a Tennessee company that helped the department buy warehouses for immigrant detention this year, and that it received a $31.8 million order to renovate the Roxbury warehouse into a processing and detention center, according to federal contracting records and a person familiar with the award.
Source: Project Salt Box
After the report, attorneys for New Jersey and Roxbury contacted the department's lawyers. In a four-page status report filed in U.S. District Court, a government lawyer acknowledged for the first time that the department had decided to pursue the project. The lawyer could not confirm whether the contract had been signed, but later told the state's attorneys that money had been set aside for maintenance, design work on the department's preferred plan, and an environmental review under the National Environmental Policy Act. The state has asked for a copy of the contract to test whether that description is accurate.
“If DHS has in fact entered into a contract to convert the Roxbury site into a detention center, that raises significant concerns about DHS's compliance with the stipulated order, which generally bars DHS from undertaking activities at the warehouse site for purposes of converting it into a detention center,” Deputy Solicitor General Shankar Duraiswamy wrote in the filing.
A court order that froze the conversion
The department bought the warehouse in February for $129.3 million, intending to convert it into a processing center for immigrants arrested in President Donald Trump's mass deportation operations. Planning documents indicated the facility could hold as many as 1,500 people, though officials later reduced the proposed capacity to fewer than 550.
New Jersey and Roxbury Township sued in U.S. District Court in March, accusing federal officials of ignoring laws that require environmental reviews and consultation with state and local governments before moving ahead. Under a May 12 court order, the agency agreed to suspend most work at the warehouse while it conducts an environmental assessment, and until the state has a chance to challenge the findings. In the meantime, only basic maintenance and security work is permitted at the site.
Months of contradictory answers
The November filing also details a series of contradictory statements by department officials about the property. After the May order, officials first told the court the agency had decided against a Roxbury detention center. Two weeks later the agency reversed itself and said no decision had been made. In filings and communications after that, officials continued to say no decision had been made and there was no timetable for one — a position the November 6 acknowledgment has now replaced.
The September parking-lot operations
The contract is not the state's only compliance concern. Federal officials have acknowledged that agents from ICE's Newark Enforcement and Removal Operations field office brought nine immigrants to the warehouse parking lot after a September 4 raid in Dover, and used the lot again on September 8 as a staging and processing site for five immigrants arrested in Dover and Ledgewood. The activity stopped only after the field office director instructed managers on September 14 to tell agents the property could not be used for immigration enforcement, according to an email from ICE's congressional liaison to Rep. Analilia Mejia, which the November 6 filing confirms the department has also described to the state.
Source: Jersey Vindicator
The state attorney general's office is investigating the September incidents. “They appear to be using the warehouse as a base of operations to stage raids throughout Northern and Central New Jersey, and possibly for other purposes,” said David Broderick, a legal adviser to Project NINJA. “Once again, ICE is demonstrating its utter contempt for the rule of law.” A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson declined to comment on Monday.
New Jersey is home to one of the largest Indian and Punjabi communities in the United States, concentrated around Edison, Jersey City and the Route 1 corridor, and North Jersey already hosts the Delaney Hall detention facility in Newark. A second large detention site in Morris County would expand federal detention capacity across the region where many diaspora families live, work and run trucking and small-business operations — which is why a warehouse dispute in Roxbury is being watched well beyond one township.
What happens next
The state and Roxbury have told the court they may ask the judge to intervene if further information shows the department violated the May order. Much now turns on the contract itself: the state is waiting for a copy, and whether its terms cover design and conversion work — rather than only the maintenance and environmental review the order allows — will shape the next court fight. The case remains in U.S. District Court in New Jersey, where the parties have been filing joint status reports on the site's future, including an update delivered to U.S. District Judge Jamel Semper in September.
For residents, the immediate dates are public ones: Project NINJA's information call on November 10 and its rally at the Rockaway Mall at noon on Saturday, November 14. Awaaz Punjab will follow the court's response and any ruling on whether the conversion contract can stand.