Policy announcements from the Trump administration sometimes seem like they’re subject to change. So may the latest idea to detain thousands of undocumented immigrants at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst.
“The base does not have any plan on where this may or may not be located. If that comes, it’ll come from DHS, the requirements that they will need,” said. U.S. Rep. Donald Norcross (D-1st).
Norcorss and Rep. Herb Conaway (D-3rd) toured the base Friday.
And that’s part of the concern, say the lawmakers. Conaway says Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which is in the Department of Homeland Security, has a less than stellar track record of running detention facilities, something they almost always hire private companies to do, like Delaney Hall in Newark, operated by the GEO Group. Conaway says the visit confirmed to him that nobody seems to know what’s next.
“Quite frankly, and in fairness to the commanders on the base, they are as much in the dark as we are about what may happen,” said Conaway, whose district is home to the base. “We’re confident that commanders at Joint Base MDL will conduct their mission as they’re ordered and they will do that dutifully and responsibly. I have to say I am much less sanguine about DHS and ICE conducting their mission and their tasks responsibly and according to our constitutional principles.”
