The New Jersey Assembly passed a bill Tuesday aimed at imposing new fees on the operators of private detention facilities.
Only two such jails currently operate in New Jersey: Delaney Hall in Newark and the Elizabeth Detention Center, both of which contract with U.S Immigration and Customs Enforcement to house immigrant detainees. The bill is largely seen as an attempt by Democrats to target the Trump administration’s mass deportation effort.
“This bill is really just about accountability,” bill sponsor Assemblywoman Mitchelle Drulis (D-Somerset) told the New Jersey Monitor. “We have these corporations who have figured out a way to profit off of detention, and at the same time we’re seeing the impact in our communities.”
The bill was introduced in February after significant public backlash to Delaney Hall, which opened last year as part of the Trump administration’s mass deportation effort. It is owned by Geo Group.
Nonpartisan legislative budget officials say the measure, if signed into law, would generate up to $16.2 million in annual revenue for the state.
Passed 57-22 along party lines Tuesday during the last legislative voting session before lawmakers’ customary summer recess, the legislation faced strong rebukes from Assembly Republicans who called the bill an example of state overreach. Its Senate companion has yet to advance.
Assemblywoman Dawn Fantasia (R-Sussex) in an interview called the bill “silly” and “shortsighted” and said it won’t hold up in court.
“At the end of the day, if the federal government chooses the Geo Group as their agent, this private prison provider,” Fantasia said, “you cannot obstruct or make it impossible for that private provider, who is contracted by the federal government to carry out a federal government function.”
Fantasia noted that New Jersey’s efforts, under the prior governor, to block private companies from contracting with ICE to house immigrant detainees were blocked by federal judges.
The legislation would impose an annual fee of 8% of the value of the detention facility’s government contract, and charge a monthly fee of $15 per inmate per day for each month they’re detained. The revenue would support legal services for families of detained individuals and community-based programs related to food security, housing, and job training.
Geo Group would bear the brunt of the fees and could face up to $12.3 million in tax and fees, legislative budget officials say. CoreCivic, which owns the Elizabeth Detention Center, would face up to $3.9 million.
Drulis noted that the bill does not bar private firms from contracting with the federal government to house migrant detainees, it merely taxes them for doing so. For her, the GOP response to the bill shows that critics don’t fully understand it.
“I don’t think that they’ve done their homework,” Drulis said.
