DHS Warehouse Purchases for ICE Detention and the Roxbury Court Fight
DHS bought 11 warehouses for about $1 billion in early 2026 to turn into detention centers for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. NPR reported on Oct. 8 that the purchases were meant to add detention space for President Trump's mass deportation efforts. NPR
One of those buildings is in Roxbury, New Jersey. It is nearly 500,000 square feet, roughly the floor space of eight football fields. Neighbors told NPR in March they were outraged about a detention center that large in the township. NPR
The warehouse plan was largely dropped after backlash, protests and legal challenges. A court order now bars the government from converting the Roxbury site until environmental reviews are finished. Those reviews study effects on air, water, traffic and public health. New Jersey sued the Trump administration over the proposed center in March. The state and Roxbury Township then sought an injunction, a court order to block it, on April 7. Reuters
NPR still reported signs the Roxbury building is being used for detention. Questions grew after Sept. 4, when masked immigration agents ran raids in Dover, New Jersey. The raids revived months-long rumors that ICE was taking people to the nearby Roxbury warehouse.
Immigrant advocates said on Sept. 16 that federal authorities were using the Roxbury warehouse for migrant detention in violation of the court order. New Jersey Monitor New Jersey's attorney general said the office is looking into those reports.
The Roxbury fight came during a wider expansion. ICE was projected to add 16 new detention centers holding about 1,500 people each, plus six other large sites holding up to 10,000 people each. In February, the administration was looking at warehouses nationwide to hold detainees. Roxbury officials opposed the plan for the town.
Opposition in Congress started early. On Jan. 14, Reps. Rob Menendez, Bonnie Watson Coleman and LaMonica McIver led New Jersey Democrats in demanding that DHS halt the Roxbury plan. By June, NJ Spotlight News reported the administration looked to back off the Roxbury plan. In August, New Jersey civil rights officials opened a separate investigation into treatment of detainees at a privately run ICE detention center in Newark.
Disagreement inside the system also surfaced. A government contractor official told NPR that a DHS deputy director said DHS staff had pushed back hard on the warehouse idea because "warehouses are horrible places to put people." The same contractor told NPR his company had proposed FEMA-style camps in Texas, temporary sites like those used after disasters, as a more humane alternative. He said the idea was rejected. He also said he was told that White House adviser Stephen Miller "did not want comfortable or humane facilities and wanted them to be cruel and painful." White House spokesperson Lauren Bis told NPR the contractor's claims about Miller were "false hearsay allegations." She denied Miller ever said he wanted worse conditions.
The broader context here is enforcement capacity versus court and state limits. DHS tried to add beds quickly by reusing industrial buildings, a path that avoids new construction time but raises issues over detention standards, environmental review and local land use. What to watch is compliance with the Roxbury order, the scope of the attorney general's review, and whether any documented use at Roxbury brings contempt findings, court orders or congressional oversight. The Newark civil-rights probe adds a second New Jersey case that could shape conditions lawsuits even if expansion stalls.
