ICE plans to bulk up detention facilities in N.J., ACLU learns. Congresswoman is ‘furious.’

The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, better known as ICE, has proposed to add as many as 600 beds to house immigration detainees at two locations in New Jersey.
The ACLU in New York learned about the plans through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, stemming from ICE seeking contracts for additional space to house inmates in the Newark area, and publicized it last week.
ICE plans seek more space at the Elizabeth Contract Detention Center, which is already an ICE immigration jail, and the Albert M. “Bo’ Robinson Treatment Center in Trenton, a halfway house that has been used in the past by New Jersey’s corrections and parole agencies, and Mercer County’s jail.
“ICE does not comment on ongoing or pending litigation,” ICE Spokesperson Mike Alvarez told NJ Advance Media.
U.S. Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman, who represents Trenton in Congress, sees the move as using the capital city “as a staging ground for mass deportations,” she said in a statement, calling the development “infuriating.”
“Immigrant Americans move here for the promise of freedoms that we all – Black or white, Latino or Asian, Native or newcomer, cherish. But today, Donald Trump and his MAGA Republicans stoke fear against new immigrants to distract us from their agenda, which threatens to raise prices, make cuts to Social Security and Medicare, and let corporations gouge prices,” Watson Coleman, D-12th Dist., said.
“This proposal is unacceptable and runs counter to New Jersey values. I reject it and call on community leaders, the Governor, and President Biden to reject it and get to work on creating a fair immigration process that respects all families,” the congresswoman said in the statement.
The ACLU, though, pointed out that the plans originated under the Biden administration, which the agency has been questioning.
“Instead of closing abusive detention facilities once and for all, the Biden administration is simply paving the way for the incoming Trump administration to conduct mass detention and deportation of immigrant communities nationwide,” Eunice Cho, senior staff attorney at the ACLU’s National Prison Project, said in a statement.
“The Biden administration must instead work to close these facilities now,” Cho said.
Trenton Mayor Reed Gusciora took a more measured tone with the news, saying he understands more ICE inmates in Trenton could create more jobs in the city, but he’s very leery of the Trump administration’s immigrations plans.
“It’s going to be one of those wait and see things,” he said.
“But,” the mayor said, “if they’re getting rid of just the bad guys, we’re all for it.”
“I mean, MS-13 gang members and the like, you know, I have no problem with that.”
Both the Elizabeth and Trenton facilities have been the target of complaints and critics that say they are inhumane, and with the Elizabeth center, the subject of public protests.
In 2015, Mercer County pulled its inmates from the Bo Robinson center citing mismanagement.
The GEO Group once owned the facility, but no longer, according to the ACLU. Bo Robinson is not listed on the company’s website. It’s unclear who currently owns or operates Bo Robinson.
CoreCivic owns the Elizabeth facility, and has sues to stop the New Jersey law signed by Gov. Phil Murphy in 2021 that bars county or private jails from signing, renewing or extending immigration detention agreements” with ICE. The matter is currently under appeal.
The company, CoreCivic, a private jailer formerly called Corrections Corporation of America, did not immediately return a message seeking comment.
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Kevin Shea may be reached at [email protected]