Feds stonewall New Jersey lawmakers on plans for immigrant detention camp at joint base
Federal officials have ignored lawmakers’ demands for more information about a proposed immigrant detention camp at a South Jersey military base, and even brushed off an August deadline from members of New Jersey’s congressional delegation, The Jersey Vindicator has learned.
The federal government plans to build the mammoth tent city — which could house as many as 3,000 detainees and serve as a “central hub” for deportation efforts — at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, a sprawling facility about 20 miles southeast of Trenton, according to a July memo from the Department of Homeland Security.
But when word of the proposal leaked two months ago, irate Democrats, including South Jersey Congressmen Donald Norcross and Herb Conaway Jr., clamored for specifics about when the camp would open, who would pay for it, what the federal government would build, and how officials would care for detainees, among other things.
Despite this, federal officials blew off their pleas and ignored the representatives’ Aug. 15 deadline for more information, according to a statement from Democratic Rep. Donald Norcross.
“The Trump administration has left us in the dark by failing to provide clarity on the procedures required to house undocumented immigrants at [the base],” Norcross, who represents the state’s 1st Congressional District, said in a statement last week. “Given the administration’s previous record of mismanaging detention facilities, there is a real concern this could disrupt defense operations.”
Norcross added that he is “deeply disappointed” that neither the Department of Defense, the Department of Homeland Security, nor Immigration and Customs Enforcement responded to the delegation’s inquiries.
The federal government’s refusal to divulge the particulars of its plan — even to the state’s elected officials — has left the public in the dark about what might happen at the base if the government builds the holding facility.
Federal officials were no more forthcoming when The Jersey Vindicator contacted them.
The Department of Homeland Security directed inquiries to the Department of Defense, which only recited information that was already public.
Last Wednesday, a Pentagon official said ICE intends to hold the undocumented in “temporary soft-sided holding facilities” — an elaborate way of saying they would be kept in tents.
But the official offered no clarity on when the government would open the site, how many detainees it would regularly hold, or who would be responsible for ensuring it does not fall into Delaney Hall-like disarray.
“The timeline for these facilities will depend on operational requirements and coordination with [DHS],” the official said, adding the department would provide updates “as they are available.”
In his statement, Norcross said he would use his position on the House Armed Services Committee to push for briefings that would “further explain the plans to house undocumented immigrants at the joint base.”
The only details released so far have come from a July 15 memo written by Col. Anthony Fuscellaro, the Department of Defense’s executive secretary, who said the joint base would house “single adult non-high-threat illegal aliens who have a nexus to a transnational criminal organization or criminal drug activity.”
ICE and its contractors will oversee the site and care for the undocumented, who will generally stay for about two weeks, the memo added.
‘A gulag in our Garden State’
ICE already operates about 150 sites nationwide, including two in New Jersey: Newark’s Delaney Hall and the Elizabeth Detention Center.
The proposed expansion, which includes the joint base camp, will likely be funded by a $45 billion boost Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” gave ICE earlier this year to help detain anyone in the country illegally.
The agency has detained so many people that the extra facilities have become a necessity, according to the Associated Press.
Over the summer, Trump border czar Tom Homan said the government wants to expand the number of holding facility beds by about 40,000 to a total of 100,000, the outlet reported.
“We’re looking for any available bed space we can get that meets the detention standards we’re accustomed to,” Homan said. “The faster we get the beds, the more people we can take off the street.”
In a July 15 letter obtained by NJ Spotlight News,, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told Conaway he had given the green light for the joint base’s “temporary use by the Department of Homeland Security to house illegal aliens.”
Civil rights activists and Democratic politicians immediately responded, with members of New Jersey’s Democratic congressional delegation condemning the decision “in the strongest possible terms,” according to a statement Conaway posted to social media.
“Using our country’s military to detain and hold undocumented immigrants jeopardizes military preparedness and paves the way for ICE immigration raids in every New Jersey community,” read the statement, which was signed by Sens. Cory Booker and Andy Kim, as well as eight members of the House of Representatives. “We have the greatest military in the world, and using it as a domestic political tool is unacceptable and shameful.”
Amy Torres, executive director of the New Jersey Alliance for Immigrant Justice, called the move a “dangerous escalation of the federal government’s detention machine and a direct attack on New Jersey’s efforts to protect immigrant communities,” according to the organization’s website.
And in a July 18 Facebook video, Conaway further criticized the proposal as one that “militarizes an immigration policy which has led to the inhumane treatment of undocumented immigrants across our country.”
“It seems the administration wants to use the joint base as their Northeast ‘Alligator Alcatraz,’” Conaway said, referencing a new Florida detention center in the Everglades. “Let’s call it what it is: I don’t want to see the equivalent of a gulag in our Garden State.”
Later that month, Conaway, Norcross, and six other Democrats sent the letter demanding more information, to no avail.
Immigration advocates from various grassroots groups have already begun protesting outside the fort, and even though they are not sure what is going on, they fear the worst.
Chris Schultz, one of the organizers of the Fort Dix Resistance Brigade, said last Thursday the group began protesting outside the main gate to McGuire Air Force Base in July as word of the proposed camp spread.
But they later relented because nobody had seen much activity.
“I know some people who are actually on base, and they say there’s no evidence of any construction or new work going on,” Schultz said. “There’s no evidence of ICE people hanging around there. There hasn’t been any change in the routine. Nothing is happening. So we don’t want to cry wolf and keep saying something terrible is happening here when it’s not.”
Schultz’s group is keeping a close watch to make sure that does not change.
“We’re going to go roughly once a month just to maintain a presence,” he said. “So if they start escalating on their side, we’ll be ready to escalate on our side. If they start shifting gears, we’ll hear about it right away.”
Meanwhile, Sally Pillay, an advocate who sits on the board of First Friends of New Jersey and New York, worried about what will happen if and when the federal government moves forward, especially if ICE plans to keep people in tents during the blustery, frigid New Jersey winter.
“That’s our concern,” Pillay said. “It’s not like a fully constructed shelter that’s protective in any means or form. They’re tent cities.”
If this reporting helped you understand something important about New Jersey, consider supporting it.
The Jersey Vindicator is an independent, nonprofit newsroom focused on accountability and transparency. Our reporting is funded by readers — not corporations, political insiders, or big advertisers.
Reader support makes this work possible — and helps ensure it continues.
Steve Janoski is a multi-award-winning journalist whose work has appeared in the New York Post, USA Today, the Associated Press, The Bergen Record and the Asbury Park Press. His reporting has exposed corruption, government malfeasance and police misconduct