The U.S. Department of Homeland Security purchased a massive warehouse off Route 46 in Roxbury, the town’s mayor and council said in a statement Friday afternoon, capping off a week of confusion surrounding the facility.
The 470,000-square-foot warehouse at 1879 Route 46 will be used as an immigrant processing center, officials said. Newly detained individuals would be held in the Morris County facility before being transferred to another jail.
The Roxbury location would be the third detention facility for migrants in New Jersey. There are two privately owned jails in Elizabeth and Newark that house federal immigrant detainees.
NJ Assembly panel advances state-level voting rights act
Roxbury officials oppose the Trump administration’s push to open the facility in their town.
“Let us be clear: Roxbury Township will not passively accept this outcome. The township Council and our legal team have been preparing to pursue all available legal remedies. We are ready to challenge this matter in court and will act swiftly and aggressively to stop the development of a detention center in Roxbury,” they said in the statement.
News of the purchase comes after a chaotic week with conflicting messages from the federal government. On Wednesday, Gothamist reported that Homeland Security officials said they had purchased the warehouse in Roxbury and claimed it would create 1,300 jobs and bring in over $39 million in tax revenue. Town officials later told the outlet that federal officials told them that “no facility was purchased in Roxbury.”
Homeland Security officials this week retracted similar confirmations about warehouse purchases in Chester, New York, and Lebanon, Tennessee.
Roxbury officials said the warehouse property is “not an appropriate location for a facility of this nature in a suburban community.”
“Its placement within a residential area, combined with significant limitations in water and sewer infrastructure, should have been immediate and disqualifying considerations,” they said.
Roxbury officials also condemned Dalfen Industrial, the warehouse owner, for selling the property to the federal government even after the town offered support, including tax breaks, to redevelop the property.
“It is extremely disappointing that Dalfen Industrial prioritized profits over community, it’s a decision that is not reflective of a good community partner,” they said.
Calls made to Dalfen were not returned Friday. Department of Homeland Security officials also did not respond to requests for comment. A statement from ICE said the Roxbury location will be a “very well-structured” detention facility.
“Every day, DHS is conducting law enforcement activities across the country to keep Americans safe. It should not come as news that ICE will be making arrests in states across the U.S. and is actively working to expand detention space,” the statement says.
The detention center in Roxbury would be the second to open in New Jersey during Trump’s second term. Delaney Hall, a 1,000-bed facility in industrial Newark, opened its doors in May and has been at the center of numerous controversies. Detainees escaped from it last year, Newark Mayor Ras Baraka was arrested there on a trespassing charge that prosecutors later dropped, Rep. LaMonica McIver is accused of assaulting federal agents there the day Baraka was arrested, and Jean Wilson Brutus, a Haitian migrant who was detained at Delaney Hall for less than 24 hours, died in federal custody shortly after his December arrest.
In December 2025, the Washington Post reported the Trump administration’s plans to dramatically increase detention capacity by purchasing industrial warehouses nationwide as it pursues President Trump’s mass deportation effort. The Roxbury site was one of 16 facilities named in the report.
As word of the plan spread, outrage grew in the town, which voted overwhelmingly for Trump in 2024. The all-Republican township council passed a resolution opposing ICE’s plans. But township attorney Tony Bucco — who is also the state Senate minority leader —warned that local opposition would likely have no impact if the federal government decided to purchase the property.
More than 500 residents gathered outside the Ledgewood Commons shopping center off Route 46 on Monday to condemn any plans to bring an ICE facility to their backyard. Protesters said they had environmental and moral concerns about turning the warehouse into a detention center.
Neill Clark, a councilman in nearby Sparta, spoke out against the proposed jail at the protest, and said it was notable that people in a historically Republican county were standing outside in the freezing cold to protest a planned migrant jail.
“I think just seeing the abuses that we’ve all seen with our eyes, right in front of us, it really strikes a chord, and it scares us,” he said in an interview Friday, before town officials confirmed the warehouse purchase.
Clark said he wants to see more guidance from the state and Gov. Mikie Sherrill, a Democrat who has been critical of the Trump administration’s immigration policies.
“As an elected official, people are concerned about the federal government violating their constitutional rights, so it’s only natural that they would ask their local official, ‘Is there anything you can do to help me if this happens to me?’” he said. “And that’s where we could use some guidance, really, from the state level to help provide that direction.”
On Monday, the Legislature is scheduled to vote on a trio of bills aimed at strengthening protections for New Jersey immigrants and curbing federal immigration enforcement in the Garden State.
GET THE MORNING HEADLINES.
