U.S. Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman of Ewing has joined a statewide Democratic effort to oppose a proposed Immigration and Customs Enforcement warehouse detention facility in Roxbury Township.
Watson Coleman, who represents New Jersey’s 12th Congressional District, announced Feb. 19 that she is backing an initiative led by U.S. Rep. Rob Menendez to stop the project.
The effort also includes U.S. Sen. Andy Kim and members of New Jersey’s Democratic congressional delegation: LaMonica McIver, Herb Conaway Jr., Josh Gottheimer, Donald Norcross, Frank Pallone and Nellie Pou.
The delegation is urging the Department of Homeland Security to halt plans to convert an industrial warehouse in Roxbury Township into a large-scale ICE detention facility.
According to the lawmakers, the proposed site could house up to 1,500 detainees.
“ICE, in its actions around the country, has displayed an increasing dismissal of human rights. New Jersey at large, including the community of Roxbury, has rejected this as antithetical to the values of our great state,” Watson Coleman said.
She added, “A concentration camp in Roxbury would be a symbol of this immorality. The people of New Jersey have said loud and clear, ‘ICE is not welcome here.’ This initiative will shout that declaration from New Jersey to the White House.”
Menendez said the proposal reflects what he described as the Trump administration’s broader immigration agenda.
“After his Administration bragged about wanting to treat immigrants like ‘Amazon Prime,’ the latest development in Trump’s cruel anti-immigrant agenda is using massive warehouses for immigrant detention,” Menendez said.
“I have personally witnessed abhorrent conditions at Delaney Hall, and the idea that this Administration wants to replicate them at an even bigger scale at warehouses not meant for human occupancy is horrific,” he said.
Sen. Kim said private detention centers “have no place in New Jersey,” while McIver said ICE has shown “no regard for due process or human dignity.”
Conaway said converting an industrial facility into a detention center is “inhumane and deeply wrong,” and Gottheimer said immigration enforcement must be carried out “professionally, lawfully, and with fact-driven accountability.”
Norcross cited a recent ICE raid in Lindenwold and called on residents to respond to a public survey organized as part of the initiative.
“Our initiative is about giving New Jerseyans a voice before Trump turns a warehouse in Roxbury into a mass detention site for up to 1,500 people,” Pallone said.
Pou called the proposal “unconscionable” and said another ICE detention center “is not welcome in our community.”
According to the delegation, the proposal has drawn bipartisan opposition locally, including a resolution from the all-Republican Roxbury Township Council opposing the warehouse conversion. Lawmakers also said the site reportedly lacks water and sewer capacity for the proposed use.
New Jersey is home to more than 2 million immigrants, according to the delegation, who described immigrants as essential to the state’s economy, workforce and small businesses.
The lawmakers also cited prior federal detention contracts in New Jersey that they said resulted in unsafe conditions and unrest.
The initiative follows a previous letter led by Menendez calling on the Department of Homeland Security to halt ICE’s warehouse detention plan in Roxbury.
Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman.,
