The latest filing contradicts a court notice from last week that said the agency intended to move forward with the Morris County project.

A new federal court filing shows that the Department of Homeland Security has not decided whether to convert a massive Morris County warehouse into an immigrant detention center, despite filing court papers just a week ago saying the agency intended to move forward with the project.

In a joint status report filed Friday in the U.S. District Court, Justice Department attorneys said DHS is “continuing to assess whether to proceed with plans to convert the Roxbury warehouse into a detention facility,” but said there is no timeline for a decision.

The latest filing appears to contradict a court notice the Trump administration filed just a week earlier stating that DHS “intends to move forward with plans to consider the retrofitting” of the 470,000-square-foot warehouse on Route 46.

That filing had itself reversed the administration’s position from nine days earlier, when Justice Department attorneys told the court DHS no longer planned to convert the warehouse into a detention center and instead intended to sell the property.

None of the court filings explain the agency’s reversals.

Asked about the latest filing, a DHS spokesperson referred The Jersey Vindicator to a month-old social media post from Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, who said the agency would “NEVER back down” despite Gov. Mikie Sherrill’s statement that DHS had abandoned the project.

The agency ignored The Vindicator’s attempts to further clarify its plans. As The Vindicator first reported, DHS purchased the warehouse in February for $129.3 million from DG Roxbury Property Owner LP, a Delaware limited partnership tied to Dallas-based Dalfen Industrial and a Goldman Sachs asset management fund.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement initially sought to convert the sprawling building into a processing center for newly detained immigrants swept up in President Donald Trump’s mass deportation raids.

The Roxbury warehouse is one of 11 industrial properties DHS purchased nationwide for about $1 billion that would dramatically increase the agency’s detention capacity. Federal planning documents show the Roxbury facility alone could hold as many as 1,500 people.

Federal officials later disputed that number in court, claiming the facility would hold fewer than 550 detainees. Recent national reporting has suggested that the administration has retreated from the strategy because of lawsuits, community opposition, and significant infrastructure problems.

Still, activists in Roxbury organized major protests and packed local government meetings, which in turn pushed officials in the Republican-dominated town to join a state lawsuit against DHS and ICE seeking to stop the project.

That suit, filed in March, accused federal officials of ignoring laws that require environmental reviews and consultations with state and local governments.

According to court filings, DHS ignored Roxbury officials for two months and did not respond until after the department bought the warehouse.

“And when DHS did respond, it did not ask for input on environmental or other local impacts, but simply confirmed its plans to plow ahead with the detention facility,” attorneys for the state and township wrote.

Environmental groups have warned that the detention camp could increase pollution, snarl traffic, and threaten environmentally sensitive land in a protected region that supplies drinking water to millions in the Garden State.

In May, ICE agreed to halt most work at the site while it conducted an environmental assessment. Under the consent order, ICE can install fencing, security cameras, and alarms, and perform basic property maintenance, but broader conversion work remains on hold.

The constant whiplash over the project’s future drew a blistering response from David Broderick, a board member of NJ Appleseed and legal counsel for Project No ICE North Jersey Alliance, or Project NINJA, a volunteer coalition of community, religious, environmental, civil rights, and activist groups fighting ICE detention facilities in North Jersey.

“Given the impracticality of converting the warehouse into a detention facility, which presumably led to DHS’s original decision, one can’t help but suspect that this is nothing more than a political charade designed to embarrass state and local leaders, who declared victory at the time of the DOJ’s original filing,” Broderick said after the feds said they were resurrecting plans for the site.

“The DHS reversal is yet another example of the chaos that seems to engulf the Trump administration at every turn,” he continued. “In any event, DHS can be sure that this action has even further enraged and motivated their opponents.”