DHS spoke with Roxbury officials about local detention center last week, township says

When the Department of Homeland Security confirmed on February 20 that it planned to build an immigrant detention facility in Roxbury Township, local officials were incensed for a number of reasons, not least of which was the fact that they said the department had not contacted them first. “This community is the most impacted by this facility, yet we received absolutely no feedback from DHS,” the town said.

According to a new statement released by the township two days ago, communications between town officials and DHS were at last established in a “brief call” last week. Since then, township manager J.J. Murphy said he’s remained in contact with DHS officials to clarify certain aspects of the department’s plans.

“Last week, the Mayor [Shawn Potillo], Councilman [Jim] Rilee, and I participated in a brief call with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, during which they confirmed to Roxbury Township that they have purchased the property directly from Dalfen Industrial and Goldman Sachs,” reads the statement from Deputy Mayor Mark Crowley.

The statement also reiterates the township’s steadfast opposition to the planned facility, though it notes that thanks to the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause, no local ordinances would be capable of stopping the development. In prior statements, the township had threatened legal action against DHS’s plans.

“Roxbury Township remains steadfast in exploring every available avenue in opposition to the establishment of a federal detention facility within our community,” Crowley said.

The issue of DHS’s contact with Roxbury officials, or lack thereof, arose at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Tuesday at which DHS Secretary Kristi Noem was called to testify. During his allotted questioning time, Senator Cory Booker chastised Noem for her department’s failure to meet with Roxbury officials and declared her to be “incompetent.”

“My office tried to facilitate a meeting between DHS and local officials so that [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] could hear their concerns, yet DHS did not even respond,” Booker said. “That is unacceptable.”

Noem did not push back on Booker’s characterization during the hearing, but ICE took to social media after the fact to accuse the senator of lying. “ICE officials have met with the mayor, the city manager, AND city council members of Roxbury, NJ, to discuss the purchasing and utilization of an industrial warehouse as a detention facility,” reads a post on ICE’s official X account.

The Washington Post first reported in December that ICE was looking at warehouses, including the one in Roxbury, for use as detention facilities, prompting local protests and a unanimous vote of the all-Republican township council opposing any such plans. For nearly two months after that, DHS kept the town in the dark about what it planned to do, before finally releasing a statement on February 20 saying that the purchase had been completed.

Booker and other top state Democrats, including Gov. Mikie Sherrill, have been united thus far in opposition to the facility; he and Senator Andy Kim introduced a bill last week to prevent ICE from purchasing or maintaining converted warehouses using supplemental funding given to the agency last year. Roxbury’s local congressman, Tom Kean Jr. (R-Westfield), does not explicitly oppose DHS’s plans, though he is pushing a bill of his own that would defray some of the potential costs that could fall on Roxbury.