New Jersey Democrats and immigrant rights advocates are blasting the Trump administration’s move to use a Burlington County military base as an immigrant detention center.
Both of New Jersey’s U.S. senators and all nine New Jersey House Democrats oppose the move to house detained immigrants at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, with most of them signing a statement Friday calling the plan an “inappropriate use of our national defense system and military resources.”
“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. We have the greatest military in the world and using it as a domestic political tool is unacceptable and shameful,” the statement reads.
The news surfaced this week via a letter U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth sent to Rep. Herb Conaway (D-03), whose district includes the base, commonly known as Fort Dix. The letter was first reported by NJ Spotlight News.
Hegseth’s letter says detaining immigrants at Fort Dix will not negatively affect military training, operations, readiness, or other military requirements. The federal government also intends to house detained immigrants at an Army camp in Indiana.
The move could represent a massive expansion of immigrant detention in New Jersey. Earlier this year, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement began housing detained immigrants at a 1,000-bed facility in Newark. Immigrants picked up by ICE are also held at a private jail in Elizabeth.
A new federal spending bill signed into law by President Trump earlier this month increases funding to carry out Trump’s immigration agenda, with $45 million alone for new detention facilities.
It’s not clear how many detainees the federal government intends to house at Fort Dix. More than 11,000 Afghan refugees lived there temporarily four years ago after their chaotic evacuation from Afghanistan.
Immigration advocates have expressed concerns about the conditions inside ICE detention centers, and say the Fort Dix plan is part of a strategy to remove public oversight of Trump’s deportation push.
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“Unlike New Jersey’s two private detention centers, Fort Dix will operate entirely under federal control, shielding it from accountability and making it nearly impossible for advocates, attorneys, and families to monitor conditions or support detained individuals,” the New Jersey Alliance for Immigrant Justice said in a statement.
New Jersey officials also raised opposition to a reported Biden administration plan in 2023 to relocate some of the tens of thousands of asylum seekers living in New York City to the Atlantic City airport.
New Jersey Monitor, where this article was originally published, is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. New Jersey Monitor maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Terrence T. McDonald for questions: info@newjerseymonitor.com.
