ICE Quietly Used NJ Warehouse for Detention, Neighbors Say

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement quietly used a warehouse in Roxbury, New Jersey, to hold and transfer detained immigrants throughout the summer, according to an NPR investigation published October 8. The reports suggest the agency may have defied a May court order that barred conversion of the 470,000-square-foot facility into a detention center pending an environmental review, and they have triggered a state investigation and demands for congressional oversight.

New Jersey Attorney General Jennifer Davenport’s office confirmed in September that it was “carefully reviewing” the allegations, writing in a joint court filing that it would seek relief from the court if it determined federal officials had not complied with the order.

A Warehouse Meant for Packages, Not People

The warehouse at 1879 Route 46, set in a wooded area of Morris County, was one piece of a roughly $1 billion plan by the Department of Homeland Security to convert about 11 warehouses nationwide into ICE detention facilities, with the goal of holding as many as 100,000 immigrants at once. DHS bought the Roxbury property in February 2026 for $129.3 million from a partnership tied to Dallas-based developer Dalfen Industrial and a Goldman Sachs real estate fund, initially planning capacity for about 1,500 detainees. Government lawyers later told the court the real figure would be under 550.

The plan met immediate resistance. Roxbury’s all-Republican township council, New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill’s administration and several other states sued on environmental and other grounds. In May 2026, New Jersey and the federal government reached a stipulated court agreement pausing the conversion while an environmental assessment proceeded. That order permitted only limited upkeep — temporary fencing, security cameras, lighting, locks and routine maintenance — and barred any activity intended to convert the site into a detention center.

The agreement, however, included no mechanism for monitoring compliance. “Looking back, I’d say one major flaw in that order was there was absolutely no discussion of how their compliance would be monitored. There was no monitoring,” David Broderick, an attorney for the activist coalition Project NINJA (No ICE North Jersey Alliance), told Gothamist.

Evidence of Detention Activity

The clearest account centers on a September 4 ICE enforcement sweep in Dover, New Jersey, about five miles east of Roxbury. A woman who followed a vehicle carrying detained people up Route 46 described the scene to NPR, saying the car turned onto the woodsy road leading to the warehouse. Dover Council Member Sandra Wittner said the last vehicle entered the warehouse road at 8:25 a.m.

A man who was deported and later located by NPR in Honduras said the agents who arrested him took him to the facility. “I was picked up on my way to work, on Friday, Sept. 4. The agents loaded me into a van. They took us to Roxbury,” he said, describing being handcuffed in the parking lot for several hours before being transferred to a “real facility.” He counted nine other men with him.

Broderick said the activists’ observations — matching license plates and vehicle descriptions seen at the Dover arrests and then at the warehouse — constitute “the best evidence we’ve had so far,” though he cautioned it was “not perfect evidence.” Federal authorities have not directly addressed whether anyone was held at the site, citing ongoing litigation.

A Shifting Federal Position

The federal government’s public stance on the warehouse has repeatedly changed. In a June 29 court filing, federal attorneys said DHS “no longer intend[ed] to convert the Roxbury Warehouse into an immigration detention facility and intend[ed] to sell the warehouse.” On July 10, the Justice Department notified the court that DHS was again weighing conversion. Subsequent status reports in July and September said no decision had been made and offered no timeline.

That reversal frustrates local officials. “They’re holding people in that warehouse,” one Dover resident wrote in a WhatsApp message forwarded to NPR. Wittner, who shared the message, said the accounts initially seemed improbable given the court order. “We need our Congress members to conduct an oversight visit yesterday, quite honestly,” she said. “We need our state to aggressively pursue this investigation and demand to get inside.”

State officials have escalated. In their September 15 status report, attorneys for New Jersey and Roxbury wrote that if they determine the defendants did not comply with the stipulated order, “Plaintiffs will seek appropriate relief from the Court.” Roxbury Mayor Shawn Potillo, a Republican, said the township immediately notified the Attorney General’s office. “If creditable evidence confirms the allegations, the State and Township will take immediate action,” he said.

A Nationwide Template Under Scrutiny

Roxbury is one of roughly a dozen warehouse sites DHS purchased nationwide as it races to expand detention capacity, a buildout backed by a $45 billion congressional appropriation in 2025. Watchdog group Project SaltBox has found the government paid above the most recent valuation at every site and above market comparables at most. The DHS inspector general is auditing whether the purchases were cost-effective.

New Jersey’s own enforcement numbers have climbed sharply alongside the buildout. Statewide ICE arrests rose 147.6% from May through July 2026, according to federal enforcement data analyzed by researchers from UCLA and UC Berkeley. New Jersey has no cooperative jail partnerships with county sheriffs willing to house ICE detainees, making warehouses strategically valuable.

Michael Wriston, co-founder of Project SaltBox, argued the warehouse strategy was driven more by messaging than infrastructure. “It was really about the optics of people being kept in these cages and these large warehouses,” he told NPR. Harvard law professor Andrew Mergen, a former Justice Department attorney, said the case reveals the limits of environmental litigation as a tool to block detention. “The administration seems to have cleverly elided that intention, by sort of saying, ‘Well, we’re not going to build this facility, but we’re going to use this space in furtherance of detention,’” he said.

If the claims are confirmed, Roxbury would become New Jersey’s third immigration detention facility, joining Delaney Hall in Newark and the Elizabeth Detention Center. The site sits in the state’s 7th Congressional District, home to one of the nation’s most hotly contested midterm races, where incumbent Republican Tom Kean Jr. faces Democrat Rebecca Bennett. Rep. Analilia Mejia (D-NJ), whose district borders Roxbury, called for answers, and Gov. Sherrill said her administration “will get to the bottom of this.”

What’s Next

Judge Jamel Semper, who oversees the case in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey, has ordered both sides to file their next joint status report by November 16, 2026. The New Jersey Attorney General’s investigation remains open, and activists continue to press for a federal site visit to determine what is happening inside the facility.

For now, the central questions — whether detention occurred, and whether it violated the court’s order — rest on evidence activists acknowledge is circumstantial: matching vehicles, witness accounts and the testimony of a deported man. The coming court filing and the state’s investigation may provide the clearest answers yet.