ICE Plans Major Detention Facility Expansion In NJ

NEW JERSEY — The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) could add up to 600 more beds to house immigrant detainees in New Jersey, according to records.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in New York sued to obtain documents through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, and discovered that ICE is seeking more detention space in at least two facilities: The 300-bed Elizabeth Contract Detention Facility and the 1,000-bed Albert M. “Bo” Robinson Center (ARC) in Trenton.

Both are currently run by private prison companies: CoreCivic and The GEO Group, respectively.

This news comes as President-elect Donald J. Trump has promised to order mass deportations when he takes office again next year. Though, as Eric Cruz Morales of the New Jersey Alliance for Immigrant Justice told NJ Spotlight, the number of people in detention has more than tripled since President Joe Biden took office.

The ACLU of New Jersey has raised concerns about the current administration's plans to expand immigrant jails in the state, and attorney Eunice Cho said Biden's government must shut down the facilities now.

The two facilities that ICE is considering have a history of reported poor conditions, the ACLU added — the property owner of the Elizabeth Detention Center sued CoreCivic in 2021 and said the company failed to meet basic safety and hygiene needs, and the ARC was the subject of a 2012 New York Times piece uncovering sexual assaults, robberies, and other incidents at the facility.

“Instead of closing abusive detention facilities once and for all, the Biden administration is simply paving the way for the incoming Trump administration to conduct mass detention and deportation of immigrant communities nationwide,” Cho, a senior staff attorney at the ACLU’s National Prison Project, said in a statement.

Records also show that GEO Group is planning to secure a contract to house up to 600 detainees at Delaney Hall in Newark, as Patch reported previously.

Under a 2021 state law, all prisons in the state – public or private – are banned from making new contracts with ICE to hold federal detainees. Prisons also can’t expand or renew old agreements. But since then, both CoreCivic and GEO Group have challenged the law in court, and a judge ruled in 2023 that CoreCivic could keep its jail in Elizabeth open.

Congresswoman Bonnie Watson Coleman, who represents Trenton, said it was "infuriating" that the city would be used "as a staging ground for mass deportations."

“This proposal is unacceptable and runs counter to New Jersey values," she said in a statement. "I reject it and call on community leaders, the Governor, and President Biden to reject it and get to work on creating a fair immigration process that respects all families.”

About 440,000 undocumented people live in the Garden State, according to the Migration Policy Institute in Washington.