NJ military base poised to become ICE detention center

Image: The sign for the U.S. Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst in New Hanover Township, NJ, on August 6, 2025. Photo credit: Anthony Orlando for Public Square Amplified.

New Hanover Township, NJ - New Jersey may become an even bigger hub for the Trump Administration’s immigration plans, as U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced plans to set up a temporary detention center at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurt in Burlington and Ocean Counties. 

Established in 2009, this 42,000-acre facility is the only tri-service joint base in the Department of Defense. Border Czar Tom Homan told reporters that there are 60,000 beds available at the base, and their goal is to raise the number to 100,000 as they turned it into a holding facility.

These plans for the Joint Base come after the approval of Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which has increased funding for the DHS and its efforts to detain illegal immigrants. They also come in the wake of massive controversy surrounding the opening of the Delaney Hall Detention Center in Newark. This facility has had reports of poor conditions, with efforts to investigate them leading to the shocking arrest of Newark Mayor Ras J. Baraka and the indictment of U.S. Representative LaMonica McIver.

This is not the first time a U.S. President used a military base to hold detained immigrants. According to CNN, during the Obama Administration, around 7,770 immigrant children from Central America were placed in temporary shelters at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland in Texas, Fort Sill Army Base in Oklahoma, and Naval Base Ventura County-Port Hueneme. If the Trump Administration’s plans for the Joint Base come to fruition, it would become the third immigrant detention center in New Jersey. 

The other two facilities, Delaney Hall and the Elizabeth Contract Detention Center, are privately owned by The GEO Group and CoreCivic, respectively. Meanwhile, the Joint Base is a government military facility operated by the DOD. 

If a portion of the base becomes an immigrant detention center, it would reportedly operate under the management of ICE and the DHS with no oversight from the DOD. The amount of time the Joint Base would serve as a detention center is unknown; however, it is worth mentioning that the GEO Group’s contract to use Delaney Hall will last 15 years until 2040.

Image: A plane parked within the fenced grounds of the U.S. Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst in New Hanover Township, NJ, on August 6, 2025. Photo credit: Anthony Orlando for Public Square Amplified.

The Trump Administration’s plans for the Joint Base have received backlash from multiple state leaders, including Governor Phil Murphy and New Jersey Congress members Cory Booker and Andy Kim.

U.S. Representative Herb Conaway Jr. publicly denounced these plans on a Facebook video, saying it would be New Jersey’s equivalent of Florida’s “Alligator Alcatraz,” calling it “Garden State Gulag.” In the video’s caption, Conaway Jr. wrote: “Our military forces should not be carrying this burden. It’s an [inappropriate] use of military resources and an escalation of an immigration policy that has seen inhumane conditions of detaining undocumented immigrants. The last thing I want to see are these kinds of conditions in our state.”

Conaway Jr.’s Communications Director, Chris Garcia, shared his concerns about the Joint Base becoming another Alligator Alcatraz, having heard reports about the latter facility forcing detained migrants to eat food off the ground with their hands behind their backs like dogs. If such conditions are seen at the Joint Base, Conaway Jr. fears that this new detention facility would have a negative impact on its military operations.

“While the Secretary of Defense and DHS have communicated that there will be no interference on DOD operations, the Congressman feels strongly that if service members see this happen on the base, the mistreatment of migrants, that it will hurt morale on the base,” Garcia stated, “and that, we, you can't stay silent when people's…human rights and civil rights that they have in this country are being completely violated.”

Garcia also argued that the Trump Administration plans to use the Joint Base as a “showpiece.” Specifically, it seems the Administration wants to demonstrate that it can successfully run a detention facility on a military base, allowing it to do the same at other bases across the country. ACLU-NJ Executive Director Amol Sinha denounced the Trump Administration’s plans for the Joint Base as well, stating that immigration detention facilities are “notorious for abuse, dangerous conditions, and medical neglect.” 

He claimed that “expanding immigration detention to military facilities sets a dangerous precedent and is contrary to the values embedded in our Constitution.”

When asked for a comment on the ACLU-NJ’s stance on this issue, Campaign Strategist Ami Kachalia discussed how the Joint Base being turned into a detention center would affect the local community and government spending.

“One thing that it's always important to know is that…when there are more immigration detention beds in proximity, it does lead to more intense immigration enforcement,” said Kachalia. “So the potential for additional immigration bans in New Jersey and in the region will have implications on our communities.” 

“The influx of money for immigration detention and enforcement also comes at the expense of other priorities,” she added. “And so, when we see $170 million in additional funding for immigration and border reasons, including $76 billion for immigration detention and enforcement, that means there’s spending that's not happening, for example, on housing or health care or education. And so that's also, I think, an important thing to keep in mind.”

Image: A map of the U.S. Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst in New Hanover Township, NJ. Image credit: JBMDL. https://www.jbmdl.jb.mil/News/Photos/igphoto/2000703027/

Since the Trump Administration’s immigration plans continue to impact New Jersey communities, locals have taken action. 

Cheryl Dunican-Hein, a resident of Maple Shade in Burlington County, has volunteered to work with the Unitarian Universalist Church in Cherry Hill and other local faith-based organizations in speaking out against the Trump Administration’s immigration plans for the Joint Base.

“We are opposed to the lack of discernment in terms of who is arrested and detained. That’s number one,” she said. “[We’re] opposed to the fact that people don’t appear to be getting due process. And certainly, we would also be opposed to poor conditions that people may be living in.”

Rev. Charles Loflin, Executive Director of Unitarian Universalist FaithAction NJ, also shared his fears about the federal government using military bases to support its plans for mass immigrant detainments. Describing it as “inappropriate” and “problematic,” Rev. Loflin claims this plan could impact more groups of people, not just immigrants, in the future.

“The rhetoric is scary,” he said. “Not only do they make a strong man out of the whole immigration debate when trying to criminalize [immigrants]…but what will stop them from expanding that to whoever criticizes this government, whatever group they decide isn't worthy of dignity and respect? So we feel like this is a call to arms and, in essence, that we have to draw the line.”

Though plans for the Joint Base have yet to be approved, Representatives Conaway Jr. and Donald Norcross toured the facility on July 25. However, both the Representatives and the military leaders in charge at the base have received very little information about the Trump Administration’s plans.

It is unknown what restrictions, if any, may be put on Congress members conducting oversight visits to the Joint Base, given its status as a military facility. At this point, Conaway Jr. is still awaiting further details from the DHS and DOD, with Garcia describing the situation as a “black hole of information.”

While Delaney Hall has reportedly turned away families and legal representatives trying to visit detainees, it is unknown if the Joint Base would impose the same restrictions on visitors. It is also too early to tell if the Joint Base would be as secretive as Delaney Hall has been about its number of detainees, their identities, and their living conditions.

Due to this lack of transparency and the poor conditions reported at locations like Delaney Hall, immigrant detainees may be subjected to more mistreatment at the Joint Base if it is turned into an ICE center. While knowledge about the Administration’s plans for Joint Base is slim to none, it could have a terrible impact not just on immigrant detainees, but also on military personnel and the locals near the base.

“By having more DHS personnel be that close to a small town, the concern is that they're going to go off the base and go to towns, townships, and communities and start harassing members of the community because…it's not just extended to undocumented immigrants,” said Garcia. “They're rounding up American citizens, and they're putting [them] in the detention facilities…it's very troublesome and very concerning…that there will be more DHS and ICE agents in the area that could potentially hurt not just soldier morale, but commune morale as well.”

Public Square Amplified will continue to follow this story as it unfolds.