Consider This from NPR - ICE has quietly been using warehouses as detention centers

Episode Date: October 8, 2026

President Trump has made immigration enforcement a key part of his second term. Part of that plan included purchasing warehouses across the country. The idea was to house immigrants there and eventually deport them. But the plan soon faced legal challenges. In Roxbury, New Jersey, the Trump administration has been told to halt their plans until environmental assessments can be done. But exclusive NPR reporting shows that’s not the case.This episode was produced by Erika Ryan, with audio engineering by Peter Ellena.Jonas Adams is our director. It was edited by Tinbete Ermyas and Alina Hartounian.Our interim executive producer is Courtney Dorning.Support public media with NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show’s perks include bonus episodes and sponsor-free listening. Learn more at plus.npr.org.See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

It's consider this, where every day we go deep on one big news story. Today, what we know about ICE using warehouses to detain immigrants. President Trump has made immigration enforcement a key priority this second term. Here he is speaking at his inauguration in 2025. All illegal entry will immediately be halted and we will begin the process of returning millions and millions of criminal aliens back to the the places from which they came. Part of that plan included purchasing 11 warehouses across the country. The idea was to house immigrants there and eventually deport them.

But the plan soon faced pushback. This is a bipartisan issue because it's wholly inappropriate to use that warehouse to detain humans. That is New Jersey governor, Mikey Cheryl, a Democrat. She's talking about a warehouse the Trump administration purchased in Roxbury, New Jersey. It has two bathrooms, and the federal government claims that they're going to put 1,500 people in there. Roxbury simply doesn't have the capacity for this in their sewer system and other aspects of it. So that's why we're bringing the suit.

That's why we're fighting it. Other states also filed suit. In some places, the administration is selling the warehouses they purchased. In others, like Roxbury, they've been told to halt their plans until environmental assessments can be done. Consider this. the plan to detain immigrants in warehouses is supposed to be on pause. Exclusive NPR reporting shows that's not the case. From NPR, I'm Mary Louise Kelly.

It's consider this from NPR. We were told that Stephen Miller wanted the facilities to be difficult and painful. That's what one contractor told NPR he understood after a meeting with a top Homeland Security official. The meeting was regarding several warehouses, which ICE purchased across the country earlier this year, with a plan to turn them into detention centers. The plan has since been paused, but in one town, locals say ICE has secretly been using one of the sites. And Pierre's Jasmine Garst has this exclusive investigation. On a warm morning on September 4th, ICE rolled into Dover, New Jersey. This video was posted on a neighborhood Facebook page.

It's immigration. The woman filming yells, get on the floor. In another video, a day labor stands between a wall and several masked agents. A local activist from Project Ninja, a North New Jersey coalition that opposes ICE detention expansion, say some seven men were taken that day on their way to work. NPR visited the neighborhood. Everyone said they were too scared to talk on record, but off mic and supermarkets. market aisles and kitchens, people kept asking, where do you think they took those men? Let's rewind.

At the beginning of the year, Homeland Security bought 11 warehouses to turn into ICE detention facilities. They spent about a billion dollars on these. MPR spoke to a contractor who was approached to help convert them. He asked for anonymity for fear of retaliation from the government. No one that we spoke to at DHS was for this idea whatsoever because everybody knew warehouses are horrible places to put people. He says his company met with a deputy director at DHS who told him White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller had a design in mind. Steve Miller himself had come to DHS and said that he did not want facilities that were comfortable. He did not want facilities that were humane. He wanted them to be difficult and painful because he wanted them.

make a point. Steve Miller certainly seemed to make that point to everyone that he wanted it to be cruel. And this was what Miller had stated to the DHS at that time, director and deputy director. This was literally relayed to you. Yeah, yeah. We were in an official meeting. The deputy director there told us point blank that they had pushed back very hard on it. What surprised me was just how adamant that people were that it was going to happen anyhow, damn the consequence. So I would say in 25 years of working with the U.S. government, I've never been in that position before. In a statement to NPR White House spokesperson Lauren Biss said the contractor's comments were, quote, false hearsay allegations from someone who has never even met or talked with Stephen Miller.

Biss also said Miller, quote, has never made any remarks to anyone about wanting illegal aliens to have worse detention facility conditions. Several states' attorneys general filed lawsuits to halt construction of these warehouses. And these days, Homeland Security is selling several of them, but they're still holding on to a few, including in Hagerstown, Maryland, Surprise, Arizona, and Roxbury, New Jersey. Still, court orders bar ice from converting any of these without environmental impact assessments first. Now, over the summer, there was a surge in ice arrests, around 100,000 people in July and August. And in New Jersey, the rumors started to bubble. Dover Council member Sandra Whitner forwarded this message to NPR. It's from a WhatsApp

group. Dover is about 15 minutes away from the Roxbury warehouse. They're holding people in that warehouse. The unidentified woman says, I have a coworker who is taken there. They hold them there. And at night, they take them somewhere else. But it was just rumors until the morning of September 4th. That morning, a woman driving to work saw the raid, and she decided to follow the ice car carrying the detainees. She took this video as she trailed them. He's headed towards the Roxbury warehouse,

and I'm just going to stay with him. She asked that we not use her name because what happened next scared her a lot. So the Roxbury facility in New Jersey is in a wooded area on a road right off of root. 46. She says she saw the car turn onto the road that leads to the warehouse. And then she waited. And then a white Dodge Durango started kind of circling around me and started filming me. And then after that happened, a black Tahoe started doing the same thing. Genuinely I'm scared. But I am more scared for our community. While she waited, footage of the raid started circulating on social media. Leave them alone. Back in town, one.

One woman saw the videos as she got the kids ready for school. And she said she was thunderstruck because one of the workers being cornered by agents. That's my father, she says. She doesn't want her name used. She's scared of being targeted. About 20 minutes later, her dad called. He's 59, she says, and he sounded disoriented. He told her he was handcuffed in some kind of jail.

But she thought there is no detention center 20 minutes. from here. She also found out a friend of hers had been picked up. Now, she hasn't been able to speak to her father since then, and neither has NPR, but we were able to locate her friend in Honduras, where he's been deported. And he requested anonymity because he fears repercussions for his family still in the U.S. I was on my way to work, he recalls. The agents loaded me into a van. And then they drove us to Roxbury, to the where. house. They held us in the parking lot, handcuffed for several hours. I just went into a state of shock.

I signed my deportation papers. I was scared. Eventually, they transferred us to a real facility. In a statement to NPR, DHS did not directly respond to the comments about Miller or that it is holding people in Roxbury, but it did give NPR a statement it has previously sent about ICE detention, saying it upholds strict standards and that immigrants can choose to leave detention by self-deporting. The community is acting here to prevent people from being detained. Harvard Professor Andrew Morgan is a former attorney with the U.S. Department of Justice, Environment, and Natural Resources Division. He says ICE may technically not be breaking its agreement, which stipulated it would not convert the place into a detention center pending

an environmental assessment. But he does understand the outrage. The administration seems to have cleverly alighting that intention by sort of saying, we're not going to build this facility, but we're just going to use the space in furtherance of detention. It's just infuriating if what you're trying to do is to sort of say, no, not here, not here. The New Jersey Attorney General says they're looking into reports of the warehouse being used. In the neighborhood where the raid happened, the streets look at. deserted. At an empty diner at lunchtime, a waitress who didn't want to be named because of the climate of fear in town says one of the workers who was taken used to come here for a bite.

Then she leans over and asks, do you know where they took those men? Jasmine Garst, NPR News, New Jersey. That's it for today. And as we wrap up, a reminder that sometimes the stories NPR covers are about the work we and so many other journalists do. Press freedom is a topic we've been following closely, and at NPR, we believe a free press is a critical right for you, the public. We're committed to holding power to account and committed to bringing you the news without fear or favor. Because you are the engine behind this work. You keep our reporters on the ground and ensure public media is here to stay. The power to decide what's next for public media is yours. You can head to donate.npr.org and thank you.

This episode was produced by Erica Ryan with audio engineering by Peter Alina. Jonas Adams is our director. It was edited by 10-beat Airmius and Alina Hartunian. Our interim executive producer is Courtney Dorney. It's considered this from NPR. I'm Mary Louise Kelly.