The federal government's plan to convert a Roxbury Township warehouse into an immigration detention facility is back on — just eleven days after the Department of Homeland Security told a federal court it was abandoning the project entirely.
A Friday court filing in U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey reveals that DHS officials told their attorneys on July 8 that "upon reconsideration, the agency intends to move forward with plans to consider the retrofitting of the Roxbury Township warehouse facility for use as a detention facility." The filing is careful with its language: DHS says it will "consider" the retrofit, not that construction is finalized, adding that "agency deliberations remain ongoing." A joint status report due to the court July 17 should clarify whether a final decision has actually been made.
On June 29, both sides in the state's lawsuit filed a joint status report confirming DHS would sell the warehouse instead — a move Gov. Mikie Sherrill and the state attorney general called "a big win" at the time. Days later, on July 2, DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin posted on social media that "DHS will NEVER back down," though the post didn't specifically name the Roxbury facility. The July 10 filing then notified the court that DHS had reversed course.
New Jersey and Roxbury Township sued DHS in March, alleging violations of federal administrative, environmental and immigration law. The state filed for a preliminary injunction in April to block construction while the case proceeds, and in May, DHS agreed to conduct an environmental assessment before any construction begins — a process that could take months. Sherrill and the attorney general have argued the warehouse is "a logistics center fit for packages, not thousands of people," warning of potential "devastating impacts on the water and sewage systems" and harm to an environmentally sensitive area.
The warehouse sits in Morris County, near communities in the Summit area, and state officials have repeatedly raised concerns about strain on local infrastructure. Sherrill said in March that "this facility will overburden local services and infrastructure," adding that "Republican leaders in the community are similarly against this facility." Separately, Mullin has acknowledged that the administration's broader $1 billion warehouse-purchase program moved forward without adequate planning, according to the Washington Post, and DHS has been looking to offload several of the industrial sites it purchased nationwide — leaving open the question of whether Roxbury stays on that list or becomes an exception.
Neither Sherrill's office nor the attorney general's office had publicly responded to the reversal as of publication. The next court filing, due July 17, is expected to shed more light on where things actually stand.
