South Jersey military base to temporarily hold immigrant detainees

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The Trump administration has approved the use of South Jersey’s Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst to hold immigrant detainees.

It’s the latest move in the administration’s plan to conduct mass deportations of undocumented immigrants by expanding Immigration and Customs Enforcement personnel and facilities.

In a letter Tuesday, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth told N.J. Rep. Herb Conaway, whose congressional district includes the base, that the site was approved for “temporary use” to house immigrant detainees. Hegseth said that the move “will not negatively affect military training.”

Conaway told WHYY News that he does not know when the administration plans to begin holding immigrant detainees at the facilities nor how many immigrants will be held there. He said he also has no information on whether the detention center will be operated by the federal government.

“I suspect that some vendor is going to be brought in to occupy some space, perhaps build new spaces, temporary sheltering and facilities and perhaps use existing facilities on the base,” Conaway said. “But the point is we have no idea what the plan is.”

Conaway said he doubts that the facility will be run “according to the highest of American values.”

In a statement, New Jersey congressional Democrats, including Conaway and New Jersey Sens. Cory Booker and Andy Kim, condemned the decision “in the strongest possible terms.”

“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,” they said. “We have the greatest military in the world and using it as a domestic tool is unacceptable and shameful.”

They called on New Jersey Republicans to oppose the move.

The administration also plans to use Camp Atterbury in Indiana as a temporary immigrant detention center.

Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, which encompasses Burlington and Ocean counties, is the nation’s only tri-service base. The 42,000-acre base traces its roots back more than a century. In 2009, McGuire Air Force Base, Fort Dix and Naval Air Engineering Station Lakehurst merged as part of a larger nationwide base realignment.

Under the Biden administration, New Jersey received refugees from Afghanistan through Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst with the goal of resettling them after the Taliban took control of the country in 2021.

Amy Torres, executive director of New Jersey Alliance for Immigrant Justice, said advocates are experiencing both “shock” and “disappointment” at the news.

Torres said the Biden administration also considered the base a place to temporarily house immigrants who were being sent from the border by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and others to sanctuary cities beginning in 2022. And while Afghan refugees were being housed there in 2021, there were criticisms that it was difficult for the people there to connect with communities and advocates outside of the base, she said.

“What’s really worrying now is that there’s been a trend in the Trump administration of breaking the rules and stealthily opening sites without regard to local or public access or oversight in New Jersey,” Torres said.

In May, the Trump administration opened its first new immigrant detention center, Delaney Hall, in Newark, New Jersey. The opening of the facility was met with protests, during which Newark Mayor Ras Baraka was arrested.

That facility has already seen reports of inhumane conditions, Torres said. She worries that detaining immigrants at a federally-owned site will limit transparency and oversight.

“We may see this serve as a Northeastern gulag to increase the raid capacity across the tri-state region,” she said. “To serve as a Northeastern counterpart to Alligator Alcatraz, one of these outdoor facilities with impermanent structures that really are not fit for human living.”

The recently passed “One Big Beautiful Bill” has increased funding for immigration enforcement to $170 billion, an unprecedented sum that the administration plans to use to reach its goal of 1 million deportations annually. Of the total, $45 billion is earmarked for the expansion of ICE facilities.