This article reports on the potential expansion of ICE detention facilities in New Jersey, highlighting the concerns of immigrant rights organizers and the history of the state's activism against ICE.
Immigrants took the oath of allegiance to the United States during a naturalization ceremony on February 1, 2023, in Newark, New Jersey . This event coincides with reports revealing how outgoing President Joe Biden is laying the groundwork for potential expansion of Immigration and Customs Enforcement ( ICE ) activity.
The report shows that during Biden’s final year in office, ICE has been working to extend contracts with private prison companies to expand detention in 14 locations across the United States. Immigrant rights organizers in New Jersey were already anticipating such an expansion. New Jersey serves as a unique gauge of the immigrant rights movement more broadly due to its history and its advances and reversals of legislation against ICE detention in recent years. Additionally, the state is being viewed by the federal government as a potential hub for ICE expansion. Rumors began circulating in June 2024 that ICE was eyeing Newark as the site of a new jail to hold immigrants. In November, following the election, the ACLU reported through the Freedom of Information Act that they had found that ICE’s capacity for detention in New Jersey could expand by 600 beds spanning two facilities in the cities of Elizabeth and Trenton. (Beds are the unit most facilities use to measure their capacity for detention.) This is a setback for the state where years earlier, a diverse mix of activists from socially progressive suburbs and cities with large immigrant communities united around the demand to “Abolish ICE” during the first Trump administration. The organizing efforts which resulted in law that prohibits State and local entities and private detention facilities from entering into agreement to detain noncitizens led to the closure of three county-run ICE detention facilities throughout New Jersey
Immigration ICE Detainment New Jersey Immigrant Rights
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