Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst will indeed be used to detain immigrants, Defense Department says

At the beginning of this year, several news outlets reported that President Donald Trump’s administration was considering using military bases, among them New Jersey’s Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, to expand its immigrant detainment capacity. In a letter to Rep. Herb Conaway (D-Delran), who represents half of the joint base in Congress, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth confirmed on Tuesday that that is indeed the plan.

“I am writing to inform [you] that the provision of Department of Defense real property at Camp Atterbury, Indiana and Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, New Jersey, for temporary use by the Department of Homeland Security to house illegal aliens will not negatively affect military training, operations, readiness, or other military requirements,” Hegseth wrote.

The letter, addressed to “Representative Conway,” was sent to the House Armed Services Committee and to the members of Congress who represent the two relevant bases.

Conaway and his fellow New Jersey Democrats quickly condemned the Trump administration’s decision, saying in a statement released this morning that using the U.S. military as a “domestic political tool is unacceptable and shameful.”

“We condemn in the strongest possible terms the decision by the Trump Administration to use Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst as an immigrant detention center,” the statement reads. “This is an inappropriate use of our national defense system and military resources. Escalating a radical immigration policy that has resulted in the inhumane treatment of undocumented immigrants and unlawful deportation of U.S. citizens, including children, across the country.”

Both of the state’s U.S. senators and eight of its Democratic House members signed onto the statement; the lone exception is Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-Montclair), currently the Democratic nominee for governor, who instead released a separate statement decrying the decision as “a blatant misuse of one of New Jersey’s most critical military assets.”

The base isn’t entirely represented by Conaway; on its Ocean County side is Rep. Chris Smith (R-Manchester), a Republican who has sounded more supportive of the Trump administration’s plans. When the idea of using Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst for immigrant detention first surfaced in February, Smith told the New Jersey Globe that “if we have the capacity there, and we have the ability to ensure that there [aren’t] safety issues for the personnel at the base, then I’d be for it.”

(Conaway, for his part, was opposed to the idea from the beginning, saying that “it’s just not part of the military’s mission to be involved in these sorts of operations.”)

If and when the base does start housing immigrants, it will be the third immigrant detention facility in New Jersey, and the second one to begin operations just this year. The 300-bed Elizabeth Detention Center has been operating for years despite a legal battle with Gov. Phil Murphy’s administration, while the 1,000-bed Delaney Hall facility in Newark reopened in May of this year.

The two facilities have become key parts of Trump’s deportation agenda in the New York City area – and, contrary to his administration’s claims, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) data show that the facilities largely house immigrants without any criminal convictions. Both facilities are in North Jersey, while Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst would be the first such facility in South or Central Jersey.

This story was updated at 10:18 a.m. with comment from Sherrill.