Trump administration has abandoned plans to hold immigrants at a South Jersey military base, GAO says
Initial estimates were that Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst could hold 1,000 to 3,000 detainees.
The Trump administration has dropped its plans to build an immigrant-detention center at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst in South Jersey, according to a new report from the Government Accountability Office.
The office said that in October, after the opening of an ICE detention site at Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas, Pentagon officials said they “no longer plan to build detention facilities on other military installations.”
Specifically, the report said, Defense and ICE officials “told us that they did not move forward with plans for facilities in Indiana and New Jersey.”
The news was first reported by NJ Spotlight News.
More than a year ago, in July 2025, the administration confirmed plans to house detainees at the South Jersey base as a way to support President Donald Trump’s plans for mass deportations.
Estimates were that Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, which spreads through parts of Burlington and Ocean Counties, could hold 1,000 to 3,000 detainees.
Specific details were not released, and as time went on it was unclear if planning had gone forward.
In November 2025, local Democratic elected officials said they had received a letter from the administration saying there was currently no approved construction plan, nor a timeline, for confining people at the base.
U.S. Reps. Donald Norcross and Herb Conaway, both New Jersey Democrats and members of the House Armed Services Committee, requested more information about the administration’s plans from the Department of Homeland Security.
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.”
The base had been named as one of two sites certified to hold immigrants, the other being Camp Atterbury in Indiana.
The report by the GAO, a nonpartisan, investigative arm of Congress, said ICE began new detention initiatives before developing a plan for expansion, resulting in waste. Since January 2025, ICE invested significant resources in six new initiatives to increase detention capacity, but by July 2026 had scaled back four of them, the GAO said.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
