New Jersey, Roxbury sue to block ICE detention center plan
State and local leaders challenge ICE plan as unsafe and unlawful
Local and state officials have asked a federal judge to halt the Trump administration’s allegedly illegal plan to convert a vacant Morris County warehouse into a massive immigrant detention center.
The bipartisan lawsuit, filed by New Jersey and Roxbury Township on Friday, March 20, claims U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has ignored serious concerns about the camp’s impacts on local water and sewer systems, public safety, and the local environment.
In a statement accompanying the 67-page complaint, New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill said such detention facilities “do not make our residents safer.” In fact, they bring their own issues.
“These types of facilities also have a long track record of abuse, mistreatment, and unsafe conditions,” Sherrill said. “This is not a partisan issue; Republican leaders in the community are similarly against this facility.”
The lawsuit is the latest salvo in the months-long battle between ICE, which bought the warehouse for $130 million last month, and the local and state officials who want to kill the plan before it gets off the ground.
The feds’ proposal calls for converting a 470,000-square-foot warehouse at 1879 Route 46 into a holding facility for as many as 1,500 detainees.
Most of the occupants would be newly collared undocumented immigrants who would reportedly stay for a few weeks before being shuttled to one of seven massive warehouse camps in Virginia, Texas, Louisiana, Arizona, Georgia, and Missouri.
This feeder system of small satellite sites and mammoth primary camps would let ICE hold more than 80,000 people at a time, according to documents reviewed by The Washington Post.
Federal officials may not have expected such vehement resistance in Roxbury, a town of 23,000 that’s elected an all-GOP council and overwhelmingly voted for Trump in 2024.
But political affiliation did not stop the town’s Republican mayor, Shawn Potillo, from signing Roxbury onto the state lawsuit and commending the governor and attorney general for their “swift and decisive action.”
“We remain confident that, through this process, it will be clearly demonstrated that this location is not appropriate for a facility of this nature, given the significant impacts it would have on our residents, local resources, and the surrounding environment,” Potillo said.
The lawsuit claims the Department of Homeland Security and ICE violated the Administrative Procedure Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, the Intergovernmental Cooperation Act, and the Immigration and Nationality Act.
And it said the agencies never bothered to tell Roxbury about its plan, even though town officials tried to reach out several times.
The complaint added that the single-room, concrete-floored building has just four toilets and lacks access to the water and sewer lines needed to support 1,500 detainees and 1,000 staffers.
The facility’s daily wastewater needs are 15 times more than the approved limit, and the sewer system can’t handle such a sweeping increase, the suit said.
“If ICE exceeds the capacity of the existing infrastructure, there is a serious risk of damage to the sewer system, and sewage overflows into nearby streets, land, and waterways,” officials said.
Roxbury’s location in the New Jersey Highlands also limits the amount of water the facility could draw, according to the complaint.
If the ICE camp further strains an already stressed water system, it could cut water pressure for residents and firefighters and empty groundwater stores.
The detention center could also snarl local traffic, hurt the economy, displace housing development, and burden emergency services, among other things.
Taken together, this could deprive the town of about $1.8 million in annual tax revenue, the complaint said.
“The decision to arrange for mass detention of immigrants at the manifestly inappropriate location of the Roxbury warehouse, without taking a hard look at the environmental consequences, and without any consultation with state and local officials, violates federal law several times over,” according to the lawsuit.
An unnamed ICE spokesperson dismissed the concerns in a Friday email and claimed the agency “carefully evaluated the use of existing facilities to help minimize environmental impacts, including potential impacts to protected species, sensitive natural resources, and valued cultural resources.”
“Let’s be honest about this. This case isn’t about the environment,” the spokesperson wrote. “It’s about trying to stop President Trump from making America safe again.”
“The left didn’t care about the mountains of litter that illegal aliens dropped on ranches and riverbeds during Biden’s border crisis,” the spokesperson continued. “They’re feigning concern now because they want those same illegal aliens to stay forever and vote here.”
The agency did not respond to follow-up questions about what sort of environmental studies it commissioned, if any, before buying the site.
Meanwhile, the New Jersey chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union praised the lawsuit and commended Sherrill, state Attorney General Jennifer Davenport, and Roxbury officials for their efforts.
“The planned immigration detention center in Roxbury is yet another example of the Trump administration’s cruel mass detention and deportation agenda that disregards due process and inflicts immeasurable harm on communities,” Executive Director Amol Sinha said in a statement.
“Immigration detention is inhumane,” he continued. “And this facility, which is planned to be constructed in a warehouse unsuitable for living conditions, will most certainly foster the abuse and medical neglect that runs rampant in detention centers.”
Project No ICE North Jersey Alliance co-founder William Angus said the lawsuit, while significant, does not fully confront broader concerns about immigration detention.
“While this lawsuit is extremely important, it does not begin to address the larger problem of ICE detention centers overall. Our work continues, advocating not only for compliance with existing statues, but for protecting civil liberties and human rights, which matter in Roxbury just as much as in every other community,” Angus said.
The No ICE North Jersey Alliance said it will continue organizing across the region, including planned demonstrations later this month. The grassroots group will be present throughout Northern New Jersey on March 28 at No Kings Day protests and rallies in Morristown, Denville, Newton, and Hackettstown.
“We applaud the filing of this comprehensive legal action,” said Birdie Green, a co-founder of the No ICE North Jersey Alliance. “We’re grateful that the township of Roxbury and the state of New Jersey have heard and responded to the thousands of voices that have been raised in protest of this warehouse over the last three months. We’re also pleased to see that the lawsuit references violations that our legal experts have been citing to the town and state since December.”
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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