Federal court ruling reopens NJ to private ICE jails — and activists are furious

A federal court dealt New Jersey a massive setback in its efforts to shut down privately run immigrant detention centers.

The Third Circuit Court of Appeals rejected key parts of the state’s ban on privately run immigrant detention centers.

Immigrant rights organization, Make the Road NJ, said the ruling “opens the door for expanded enforcement and incarceration in unprecedented numbers.”

“This disappointing decision gives the Trump administration the green light to carry on their mass deportation agenda here in the Garden State, by weaponizing the justice system,” Make the Road NJ Director Nedia Morsy said in a written statement.

Court decision ‘green light’ for ‘mass deportation’ in NJ, activist says

Morsy said that “allowing corporations like CoreCivic and GeoGroup — just miles away from two international airports — to operate with impunity, with little transparency or accountability" makes New Jersey the epicenter of family separation, kidnapping, and the disappearance of our loved ones, and continues to destabilize our communities.”

NJ has two privately run detention centers housing ICE detainees

CoreCivic was the only private operator of a detention center in New Jersey at the time the lawsuit was filed.

A $313 million contract to run the center at 625 Evans St. in Elizabeth was signed in 2005. CoreCivic and ICE agreed in 2023 to a one-year $20 million extension of its previous long-term contract for detainment services. Somewhere after that, it was extended again to this fall.

This was not the detention center where the mayor of Newark was arrested this year in a confrontation that also led to charges against a member of Congress.

That was Delaney Hall in Newark, which GeoGroup reopened earlier this year under a massive $1 billion 15-year contract with the federal government.

Delaney Hall, a previously vacant private prison with a 1,000-bed capacity, was retrofitted for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The detention centers in Elizabeth and Newark are 7 miles apart.

Read More: Company will get $60M a year to open first new ICE jail in NJ 

SEE ALSO: Federal judges force out Trump loyalist as U.S. attorney for New Jersey

Encounter outside Delaney Hall led to federal charge against Congresswoman

In May, a run-in outside Delaney Hall involving elected officials and ICE officials led to the arrest of U.S. Rep. LaMonica McIver, D-N.J. 10th District, who was accused of assaulting a federal officer.

A Homeland Security spokesperson said New Jersey representatives "bodyslammed" federal agents, which U.S. Rep. Bonnie Watson-Coleman, D-N.J. 12th District, disputed as "flatly untrue."

Read More: What happened between lawmakers and ICE at Delaney Hall? 

Newark Mayor Ras Baraka was arrested on a trespassing charge, but Federal prosecutors dropped that charge days later before pursuing a charge against McIver.

Adding to the controversy around Delaney Hall, four detainees managed to escape in June.

All four were ultimately recaptured, but only after critics used the situation to slam reportedly shoddy conditions inside the center.

NJ braces for detainees to be held at Joint Base, under fed action

Presenting its argument to the federal appeals court back in May, the state Office of the Attorney General pointed out that the law doesn’t ban detention facilities altogether, New Jersey Monitor reported.

The state actually suggested that the federal government could instead run these centers in New Jersey.

President Donald Trump’s administration appears to have added that approach to its detention approach — though not in place of contracts with GEO and CoreCivic.

The Department of Defense reportedly has cleared the use of more than 1,000 beds at Fort Dix for detainees of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The Army facility is part of Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, the U.S. military’s only tri-service base, which lies on 42,000 acres between Burlington and Ocean Counties.

Those recent reports have been strongly criticized by American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey Executive Director Amol Sinha.

"Expanding immigration detention to military facilities sets a dangerous precedent and is contrary to the values embedded in our Constitution,” Sinha said in a written statement.

“New Jersey already has the largest detention facility on the eastern seaboard, Delaney Hall, and with this expansion into Fort Dix, our state will continue to be the epicenter of President Trump's mass deportation agenda and ground zero for due process violations.”

NJ ICE detention centers among more than 100 centers nationwide

Elizabeth and Delaney Hall are among 115 detention centers nationwide listed by the ICE website, as last updated in late June.

Some of those facilities are county jails with certain space for ICE detainees, a practice outlawed in New Jersey in 2021.

After the law was enacted under Gov. Phil Murphy, Bergen County jail dropped its contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Missing on the list of detention centers was an instantly notorious one in Florida.

That detention facility at the former Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport within the Everglades is a state-run facility, operated by private vendors.

"Alligator Alcatraz" was first believed to be a nickname when it opened earlier this month.

It gained recognition as the official name from the White House, which shared to X an image of alligators wearing ICE hats, Palm Beach Post reported.

Florida road signs have since been put up bearing the same controversial designation.

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