DHS Reverses Course on Roxbury, N.J., Warehouse, Telling Court It May Convert the Site to Detention After All

Eleven days after telling a federal judge it would sell the $129 million warehouse, the department says it is again considering retrofitting the building to hold up to 1,500 detainees.

The Department of Homeland Security told a federal court Friday evening that it is reconsidering its decision to abandon plans for an immigration detention facility in a Roxbury, N.J., warehouse — eleven days after government lawyers represented to the same court that the agency no longer intended to convert the building and would sell it.

In a two-page notice filed July 10 in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey, Justice Department attorneys wrote that DHS officials informed them 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 notice states that agency deliberations remained ongoing as of July 10. The parties will file a joint status report on July 17.

The filing walks back a representation the government made on June 29, when the parties submitted a joint status report stating that “Defendants no longer intend to convert the Roxbury Warehouse into an immigration detention facility and intend to sell the warehouse.” According to Friday’s notice, counsel for the government “was authorized to make that representation by authorizing officials within the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.”

The notice does not explain what changed between June 29 and July 8, and it does not identify the officials who authorized either position.

The June 29 representation came eleven days after The New York Times reported that ICE planned to dispose of seven of the eleven warehouses it purchased nationwide for detention conversion, with Roxbury among the properties slated for sale or transfer. Friday’s notice does not address whether the disposition plans for the other six properties remain in place.

It is the second time this year the federal government’s stated position on the Roxbury warehouse has changed within a matter of days. In February, a DHS spokesperson confirmed to Gothamist that the agency had purchased the property; the next day, a spokesperson told another outlet that no purchase had occurred, and township officials said they were informed the original statement had been issued without proper approval. Two days after that, Roxbury’s mayor announced that ICE had closed on the building. DHS retracted similar purchase confirmations the same week in Chester, N.Y., and Lebanon, Tenn.

The turnabout comes as ICE has aggressively sought to expand its detention capacity amid a nationwide immigration crackdown surge.