BREAKING: New Jersey Sues to Block ICE Detention Facility in Roxbury
New Jersey and Roxbury Township are challenging a federal plan to convert a warehouse into a 1,500-person detention center on environmental grounds.
Updated March 20, 2026, 11:31 a.m. ET
New Jersey sued the Trump administration on Friday to stop the conversion of a suburban warehouse into a 1,500-person immigration detention center, the latest legal blow to a federal program to build out mass detention capacity across the country.
Attorney General Jennifer Davenport, joined by Roxbury Township, filed the complaint in federal court in Newark on Friday morning. A news conference is scheduled for 11 a.m. Eastern time and will be streamed live on the New Jersey attorney general’s YouTube channel.
The lawsuit argues that the Department of Homeland Security violated four federal laws when it purchased a 470,000-square-foot logistics facility on Route 46 in Roxbury and moved to convert it into a mass detention center. It seeks to vacate the agency’s decision and permanently block construction.
The filing comes a day after a federal judge in Maryland extended a construction halt on a nearly identical project in Williamsport, where work has been frozen through at least mid-April while that state’s environmental lawsuit proceeds. The two cases have emerged as the most serious legal threat to the administration's plan to convert industrial warehouses into detention facilities nationwide, a program backed by $45 billion appropriated by Congress last year.
The New Jersey complaint goes further than Maryland’s on the law. Maryland’s case rests primarily on the National Environmental Policy Act, which requires federal agencies to assess environmental impacts before undertaking major construction. New Jersey makes that same argument and adds two more: that DHS violated the Intergovernmental Cooperation Act by finalizing its decision without consulting state and local officials, and that the site violates the Immigration and Nationality Act because it is not an appropriate place to detain people. The warehouse currently has four toilets. New Jersey’s jail standards for a facility of 1,500 detainees would require at least 94 showers, 125 toilets, and 125 wash basins.
The complaint draws a pointed comparison to the administration’s handling of a similar dispute in New Hampshire. After Gov. Kelly Ayotte met with DHS Secretary Kristi Noem in Washington to raise concerns about a planned warehouse detention facility in Merrimack, DHS dropped that project within a week. New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill sent a comparable letter to Secretary Noem on February 27. DHS has continued to move forward with Roxbury. The complaint argues the difference in treatment is evidence of arbitrary and capricious agency decision-making.
The Roxbury warehouse was sold to the federal government for $129.3 million, more than double its assessed tax value, by a fund managed by Goldman Sachs and its partner, Dalfen Industrial.
The complaint also details sweeping environmental risks. Converting the warehouse would increase wastewater output fifteenfold, the suit argues, overwhelming local infrastructure and sending overflows into Lake Musconetcong, Lake Hopatcong and the Musconetcong River, a federally protected Wild and Scenic River that feeds the Delaware River, a drinking water source for 14.2 million people. A conservation easement covering much of the undeveloped land around the warehouse, held by the state’s Department of Environmental Protection, would likely be violated by fencing and security infrastructure DHS has said it plans to install.
Governor Mikie Sherrill and Attorney General Jennifer Davenport announced the suit in a statement Friday morning, framing the fight as one that crosses party lines. “This is not a partisan issue — Republican leaders in the community are similarly against this facility,” Governor Sherrill said. “That is why we are joining with Roxbury to stop this facility to protect the community and our Constitution.”
Mayor Shawn Potillo welcomed the state’s involvement. “We remain confident that, through this process, it will be clearly demonstrated that this location is not appropriate for a facility of this nature,” he said.
Attorney General Davenport said DHS and ICE had been given every opportunity to engage. “Federal laws require — and our State and towns deserve — that DHS and ICE consult with the State and the Township on major projects in their backyard,” she said. “Instead, DHS and ICE are ramming through a secretive purchase and rushed renovation.”
Birdie Green, a representative of No ICE North Jersey Alliance (Project NINJA), a volunteer-led civil liberties group in Warren County that formed in response to the administration’s warehouse detention program, said the lawsuit was long overdue. “We are thrilled that our state and the Roxbury township are taking action,” she told Project Saltbox. “It’s been a long time coming but it’s a major step to ensure that our communities will be safe from this concentration camp. We feel very good about the legal arguments presented and believe the outcome will be in our favor.”
The mayor and entire town council of Roxbury are Republicans. The township nonetheless passed a unanimous resolution opposing the project in January and joined Friday’s lawsuit as a plaintiff.
This is a developing story.
This article has been updated to include a statement from Project NINJA.
Don’t just sue. Cut off their utilities and refuse them a certificate of occupancy until they can prove they have met all local, state, and federal requirements.
Excellent! Thank you for the amazing work you are doing on behalf of all of us.