Over 1,000 residents gathered in Roxbury, New Jersey, on February 28, 2026, to protest a proposed Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention warehouse amid the Trump administration's mass deportation efforts. The 470,000-square-foot facility, targeted for purchase by the Department of Homeland Security, has drawn opposition from the town's Republican mayor and all-GOP council, who view it as unwelcome in their conservative community. Local leaders offered the warehouse owner $20 million in tax abatements to block the sale, but the proposal was rejected.
The protest in Roxbury highlights growing local resistance to the Trump administration's expanded immigration enforcement, which has seen Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrests rise drastically since the president's second inauguration in January 2025. Fifteen months into the term, agents have disproportionately targeted immigrants without criminal records, including refugees, green-card holders, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals recipients, and even U.S. citizens, according to data reported in the Slate newsletter. A record number of deaths occurred in ICE custody during fiscal year 2026.
The broader context stems from Trump's campaign promise: “On Day 1, I will launch the largest deportation program of criminals in the history of America.” The One Big Beautiful Bill Act provided $45 billion for new detention centers, funding the ICE Detention Reengineering Initiative, which allocates $38.3 billion to convert industrial warehouses into facilities. An internal document states: “For ICE to sustain the anticipated increase in enforcement operations and arrests in 2026, an increase in detention capacity will be a necessary downstream requirement.” Acting ICE director Todd Lyons described the system as one “like [Amazon] Prime, but with human beings.”
To date, ICE has spent about $895 million on 10 such warehouses nationwide, with seven purchases pending, per Project Salt Box, a group tracking the project. These acquisitions often bypass local zoning and permitting, leaving communities uninformed until late stages. Public opposition has led to at least 12 cancellations, including in Hutchins, Texas; Ashland, Virginia; and Kansas City, Missouri. In Maryland, lawmakers are advancing emergency bills to limit detention sites.
Roxbury, a small conservative town that supported Trump decisively in 2024, learned of the plan in January 2026 via a Washington Post report. Despite the town's all-Republican leadership urging DHS against it, the agency persists. At the February 28 protest outside City Hall, one resident warned: “This will destroy this city,” adding that “Roxbury will be known as the concentration town.” Pastor Eric Folkerth, who protested a similar plan in Hutchins, noted: “They are going to go somewhere else. They may have already gone somewhere else.” The warehouse sits in a quiet neighborhood near homes and a Mexican bakery, with one nearby house displaying a sign: “Immigrants are welcome here.”
In Senate testimony, David J. Bier of the Cato Institute described the scale—DHS joking about deporting 100 million—as “ethnic cleansing” and a “population purge” targeting even U.S.-born individuals.
