New Jersey is seeking a quick halt to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s plan to convert a Roxbury warehouse into an immigrant detention center, arguing the operation could “overwhelm local infrastructure.”
After suing last month over the Homeland Security Department’s plan to move up to 1,500 detainees to the abandoned building, the state said Tuesday that a preliminary injunction is necessary while litigation is pending because the agency failed to study the facility’s threats to surrounding public water systems.
“The risks are severe: sewage overflows that would pollute Lake Musconetcong, reduced water availability, drinking water contamination, and damage to equipment,” and warrant an environmental assessment under the National Environmental Protection Act, the state’s motion said.
The suit in the US District Court for the District of New Jersey is one of a handful filed by states challenging the Trump administration’s push to quickly flip warehouses into detention centers across the country.
All of them, as well as a suit by environmental groups against the Alligator Alcatraz facility in the Florida Everglades, repeatedly have invoked NEPA to stop ICE from completing renovations and moving detainees to the various locations.
Maryland secured a temporary restraining order in federal court against a similar warehouse operation last month, after a federal judge ruled that DHS likely violated NEPA because the agency didn’t review the risks of sediment runoff into nearby waters.
Federal officials purchased the the 470,000-square-foot Roxbury warehouse from the Goldman Sachs Group Inc. earlier this year, deeming the renovation project exempt from NEPA reviews, according to New Jersey’s preliminary injunction motion.
DHS invoked a categorical exclusion under its own regulations, labeling the facility a property acquisition that isn’t near an environmentally sensitive area and “does not result in a change in the functional use of the property.”
But New Jersey said the building sits adjacent to protected wetlands, and an overhaul from an industrial warehouse to a detention center significantly changes the use of the site.
“Since humans are not akin to Amazon packages, a logistics center and a detention facility are not the same ‘function,’” the state’s brief said. “And since this detention facility requires over 15-fold increases in water inputs and sewage outputs, these changes in function are precisely the kind that trigger a NEPA hard look, not an exclusion.”
A DHS spokesperson said the agency “is reviewing agency policies and proposals” and referred to Secretary Markwayne Mullin’s comments during his Senate confirmation hearing, where he said he “will work with community leaders.”
New Jersey is represented by the state attorney’s general office, as well as Covington & Burling LLP.
The case is New Jersey v. United States, D.N.J., No. 2:26-cv-02884, preliminary injunction motion 4/7/26.
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