Jack Ciattarelli, Trump’s pick for N.J. gov, opposes White House plan to house immigrants at military base
The Republican candidate for governor previously said he doesn’t have any disagreements with Trump.
Jack Ciattarelli, the GOP nominee in this year’s New Jersey governor’s race, opposes the plan to detain immigrants at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, showing a rare disagreement with President Donald Trump’s administration, albeit at arm’s length.
Eric Arpert, Ciattarelli’s campaign manager, said the candidate opposes the plan but stressed that Ciattarelli believes Democrats are to blame and left the White House “forced to deal with it.”
Wrightstown Mayor Donald Cottrell, a Republican whose borough of 400 residents abuts the base, spoke against the plan last Friday and said residents are concerned that protesters against the site will bring “civil unrest.”
Ciattarelli, who won the GOP primary by a large margin after Trump endorsed him, said in a statement to NJ.com about the base that “NJ Democrats, including [U.S. Rep.] Mikie Sherrill, created a crisis by putting out the welcome mat for illegal immigrants with their dangerous Sanctuary State policies.”
“Having created the crisis, they now want to blame the White House for being forced to deal with it,” Ciattarelli added. “That’s like an arsonist complaining about having started a fire.”
U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said in a July 15 letter that the Trump administration plans to house immigration detainees at the South Jersey military base, which occupies 42,000 acres in Burlington and Ocean Counties.
Democratic elected officials have denounced the decision.
Sherrill, the Democratic candidate for governor, said earlier this month that it was “unacceptable” for DHS to use the base.
“This is a blatant misuse of one of New Jersey’s most critical military assets and reduces a vital national security installation to a stage for political theater, which flies in the face of an apolitical military,” she said in a statement. “Using the base for detention operations risks degrading operational capacity, places an inappropriate burden on our service members, and harms civil-military relations.”
Democratic U.S. Reps. Donald Norcross and Herb Conaway, whose district includes the base, said late last week that the Trump administration had kept them in the dark about its plans for the site. They said they heard media reports that 1,000 to 3,000 detainees could be held at the base but could not confirm that information.
Sherrill’s administration has often attacked Ciattarelli for his alignment with Trump, particularly his comment last month to NJ.com that he does not currently disagree with Trump on anything.
Ciattarelli has been loyal to Trump throughout his campaign this time around, after distancing himself and speaking against him in the past. Ciattarelli, a former member of the state Assembly, also ran for governor in 2017 and 2021.