JOINT BASE MCGUIRE-DIX-LAKEHURST, NEW JERSEY - DECEMBER 02: Afghan refugees walk outside a temporary housing facility in Liberty Village on December 2, 2021 in Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, New Jersey. (Photo by Barbara Davidson-Pool/Getty Images …
BURLINGTON COUNTY, N.J. - The Trump administration has set plans in place to use a military base in South Jersey as a temporary holding site for immigration detainees.
What we know:
Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst was approved for "temporary use to house illegal aliens," according to a letter sent by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth to N.J. Rep. Herb Conaway last week.
Hegseth said that the move "will not negatively affect military training, operations, readiness, or other military requirements."
The letter also named Camp Atterbury in Indiana as a second military base approved by the administration as a holding site.
What we don't know:
The Trump administration has yet to release further details, including how many immigrant detainees would be held at either site, when they would arrive, or how the sites would be operated.
What they're saying:
Conaway, whose district includes parts of the Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, spoke out against the plan in a video posted to Facebook.
"First they made Alligator Alcatraz. Now… it’s the Garden State Gulag," Conaway said.
The congressional Democrat, along with New Jersey senators Cory Booker and Andy Kim, condemned the decision "in the strongest possible terms," calling on Republicans in the state to oppose the move.
"This is an inappropriate use of our national defense system and militarizes a radical immigration policy that has resulted in the inhumane treatment of undocumented immigrants and unlawful deportation of U.S. citizens, including children, across the country," they said in a statement. "We have the greatest military in the world and using it as a domestic tool is unacceptable and shameful."
Dig deeper:
In 2021, Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst served as a temporary housing and resettlement location for thousands of Afghan refugees, alongside Fort McCoy, Fort Bliss and Fort Lee.
The 42,000-acre base is home to 45,000 military and civilian personnel, and is one of the only bases in the United States to be operated by the Air Force, Army, and Navy.
Big picture view:
New Jersey is already home to two ICE detention facilities: Delaney Hall in Newark and the Elizabeth Detention Center in Elizabeth.
Both are among nearly 100 other detention centers that have opened across the country.
The Source: Information from this article was sourced from the social media accounts of N.J. Rep. Herb Conaway and the ICE website.