NJ military bases could become ICE deportation locations

✅ ICE needs more space for detainees since arrests increased

✅ A pilot program has started at Fort Bliss in Texas

✅ The Joint Base held 10,000 Afghan refugees in 2021

UPDATE: First new ICE detention center will be at privately run jail in Newark

New Jersey's largest military base could be used to hold immigrants in ICE custody before deportation.

As U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement ramps up arrests, the agency is creating a deportation hub at Fort Bliss near El Paso, Texas that could hold 10,000 people, according to a New York Times report. If successful, the concept could be expanded around the country, including at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, 20 miles south of Trenton and 40 miles east of Philadelphia.

The public affairs office at the Joint Base referred questions about the report to ICE.

It is not the first time New Jersey has been considered as a place to hold unauthorized immigrants.

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Hosting immigrants not new for NJ

Gov. Phil Murphy and both Democrats and Republicans were upset in 2023 at the prospect of migrants being held at Atlantic City International Airport when they were being sent via bus from Texas.

Another report had them being sent to the former Hagedorn Psychiatric Hospital in Hunterdon County.

Nearly 10,000 refugees from Afghanistan lived at the Joint Base in an area called Liberty Village after the U.S. pulled out and the Taliban took control in 2021.

Murphy offered the Joint Base to the Biden administration as a temporary home for Ukrainian refugees.

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