Trump administration tells Dems it has no timeline for confining immigrants at South Jersey base
The administration earlier said it would place a detention center at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst as it presses its arrest-and-deportation agenda.
It doesn’t look like the Trump administration will begin holding undocumented immigrants at a South Jersey military base anytime soon.
Democratic elected officials said Wednesday that they received a letter from the administration saying there is currently no approved construction plan, nor a timeline, for confining people at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst.
The administration previously announced plans to include the base among the military sites it wants to use as immigration detention centers, as it presses its arrest-and-deportation agenda.
Estimates are that the base, which spans parts of Burlington and Ocean Counties, could hold 1,000 to 3,000 detainees. Specifics surrounding the when, where, and how of that undertaking remain unknown.
New Jersey U.S. Reps. Donald Norcross and Herb Conaway, Democratic members of the House Armed Services Committee, announced that they received a response earlier this week from the Department of Homeland Security after requesting more information about the administration’s plans.
“The Trump Administration’s ongoing disregard for due process and humane treatment of undocumented immigrants has required us to press repeatedly for answers and fulfill our congressional oversight responsibilities,” the lawmakers said in a joint statement. “While we acknowledge that the Department of Homeland Security has finally responded to our questions, we will continue to monitor for any further developments.”
Their priority, the lawmakers said, is to uphold standards of human rights to ensure that plans to detain immigrants do not interfere with military readiness.
The administration’s response said the government’s need for more detention space “reflects the Trump administration’s commitment to restoring the rule of law and ending the catch-and-release policies of prior years that jeopardized American communities.”
Trump administration officials earlier named the base as one of two sites in the country now certified to assist in the president’s plan to remove millions of immigrants. The other is Camp Atterbury in Indiana.