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ICE admits to using Roxbury, NJ warehouse site to process immigrants
By
Mike Hayes
Published Oct 13, 2026
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Aristide Economopoulos / For Gothamist
By
Mike Hayes
Published Oct 13, 2026
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ICE has acknowledged using a warehouse in Roxbury, New Jersey to process immigrants after arresting them, Gothamist has learned.
The office of Rep. Analilia Mejia, a Democrat for the neighboring 11th Congressional District, shared an email from ICE officials in response to her request for an oversight visit.
In the email, ICE officials said that on two occasions in September agents brought detainees to the parking lot of the facility for “initial processing.” According to the email, at no point were the detainees brought into the warehouse on the property. The Trump administration is currently fighting New Jersey state officials in court to transform the facility into a 1,500-person detention center.
The revelation comes less than a month after the New Jersey attorney general’s office told Gothamist it was looking into claims that ICE had violated a federal court order by illegally using the site as a detention center. In May, White House attorneys signed onto a federal court order stating that the Trump administration would not move forward with any conversion of the facility until after an environmental review was conducted.
The New Jersey attorney general’s office told Gothamist that it would pursue legal action if it determined that ICE had violated the court order.
In their email to Mejia, ICE officials said that people apprehended by ICE agents were brought to the site on Sept. 4 and 8. On Sept. 14 — the same day the state attorney general’s office said it was investigating the claims — the director of ICE's Newark Enforcement and Removal Operations field office gave a verbal order to cease bringing detainees to the site.
“Let me be clear: This was no accident. ICE officers deliberately used this location, conducted processing operations with supervisory knowledge, and only after were ordered to stop,” Mejia said in a statement Tuesday.
Sean Higgins, a spokesperson for Gov. Mikie Sherrill, said the warehouse "isn't fit for housing humans."
"We have been notified they will not use the parking lot for processing again and Governor Sherrill will continue to hold ICE accountable." Higgins said..
The Department of Homeland Security and ICE also did not immediately respond to a request to comment.
This is a developing story and may be updated.
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Mike Hayes
Mike Hayes covers equity and access to opportunity in New Jersey. He joined WNYC and Gothamist in 2023. Before that, he worked as a freelance journalist writing about policing and criminal justice. He has written for ProPublica, CNN, HuffPost, BuzzFeed News and The Appeal. He is also the author of the book, “The Secret Files: Bill De Blasio, The NYPD, and the Broken Promises of Police Reform.” In 2019, he was a finalist for the Livingston Award for Young Journalists.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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