William Angus doesn’t live in Roxbury anymore. Still, the Warren County resident joined more than 100 residents and others who packed Roxbury Township Hall on Tuesday to protest a Trump administration plan to convert a warehouse into an immigrant detention center.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement this week confirmed the purchase of 1879 Route 46 from Dallas-based Dalfen Industrial.
The Morris County township, 42 miles west of Manhattan, is home to about 23,000 people who enjoy two vast lakes, a well-known trail system and highly regarded public schools. Many meeting attendees urged the elected all-Republican council and other local leaders to block the conversion.
“They don’t care about you or us, and they will do whatever the hell they want,” Angus, referring to ICE, told the council.
‘Firmly opposed’
“The township remains firmly opposed to the establishment of the detainment facility,” Mayor Shawn Potillo said. “Over the past eight weeks, the township and professional staff have pursued fact-based and other avenues available to prevent this outcome.”
The council said it opposes using the almost 500,000-square-foot property for detainment — though it supports the broader mission of ICE, which is overseen by the Department of Homeland Security.
“They’re saying they support DHS and ICE, and it boggles my mind that they are still saying that and in the same breath they’re talking about protecting the residents,” Carrie Stetler, of the Mount Tabor section of Parsippany, told NJ Spotlight News. “It doesn’t seem to me they educated themselves.”
Officials said they made their arguments to private, state and federal officials, including U.S. Sen. Andy Kim (D-NJ).
“We engaged with Dalfen Industrial,” Potillo said. “We met with Andy Kim and also met with the Attorney General’s Office to discuss how the state and township can work together to legally protect our township’s resources. Our township attorney Anthony Bucco, who facilitated the collaboration, will continue to coordinate closely.”
Some questioned whether Bucco, who also is the New Jersey Senate minority leader, had a conflict of interest, an allegation that Bucco denied.
“For rules of professional conduct for New Jersey attorneys, even the appearance of a conflict of interest means an attorney should recuse himself,” said Miguel Manalo, a Hopatcong resident. “It’s hard not to see any kind of conflict of interest.”
Two more warehouses
Officials say the warehouse was designed to store goods, not house people, and may lack sufficient sewer capacity and water service.
“How much water would they be using? We are not set up to do that,” Manalo said. “The wastewater from all those people has to go somewhere. It’s going to go in our rivers that my family swims in.”
Others expressed broader unease about how the project could reshape the community.
“They seem to think that Roxbury is ‘here’ and everything else is ‘over here’ and there’s no intertwining,” Stetler said. “That’s the most disturbing thing.”
Angus noted the property includes three warehouses.
“The warehouse in question has been sitting vacant for years, but it sits on the same parcel as two operational warehouses,” he told NJ Spotlight News. “If ICE buys the property, they may end up owning all three. What are they going to do with the others? None of the answers are very good for the people of Roxbury.”
