This blog was originally published by the ACLU of NJ on July 30, 2025. As announced in a letter from the Department of Defense , the Trump administration plans to use Fort Dix, the U.S. Army post that is part of the tri-service Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, to detain immigrants. The South Jersey military base will hold up to 3,000 beds for use by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). With this expansion to Fort Dix, New Jersey continues to be an epicenter of President Trump’s mass deportation agenda. Earlier this year, Delaney Hall, the largest detention facility on the East Coast, opened in Newark , which already multiplied the detention capacity in New Jersey four times over. The Trump administration’s mass detention apparatus is unprecedented, and employing military resources to detain noncitizens is not normal. The government is pouring money into incarcerating our neighbors, with the most recent federal budget bill funneling $75 billion to ICE for enforcement and ...