ICE has quietly been using warehouses as detention centers

0:00It's considered 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 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 Sherrill, a Democrat. She's talking about a warehouse that Trump administration purchased in Roxbury, New Jersey.

1:00It has two bathrooms in the federal government claims that they're going to put 1500 people in there. Roxbury simply doesn't have the capacity for this and 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. Stay tuned for the following announcements and messages from our sponsors. Support for NPR and the following message come from Washington Wise. Policy decisions in Washington can influence markets and your portfolio. But which developments matter most?

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3:01Cure Alzheimer's Fund, Empower Scientists, Pursuing Bold Alzheimer's Research. Learn more at curealz.org. It's considered 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 the 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 local say ice has secretly been using one of the sites. And Pierce Jasmine Garz 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.

4:08In another video, a day laborer stands between a wall and several masked agents. A local activist from Project Ninja, a North New Jersey coalition that opposes ice detention expansions say some seven men were taken to the beach. And the 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 supermarket 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. NPR 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.

5:15Steve Miller himself had come to DHS and said that he did not want the facilities that were comfortable. He did not want facilities that were you main. He wanted them to be difficult and painful because he wanted to make a point. Steve Miller certainly seemed to make that point to everyone that he wanted it to be cruel. This was what Miller had stated to the DHS at that time, director and deputy director. This was literally a relay to you. 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 the people were that it was going to happen anyhow, damn the consequence. I would say in 25 years of work with the US 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.

6:23Several states attorneys general filed lawsuits to hold 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 was taken there. They hold them there and at night they take them somewhere else.

7:23But 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 and she trailed them. 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 Route 46. She says she saw the car turn onto the road that leads to the warehouse and then she weeded it. And then a white Dodge Durango started kind of circling around me and started filming me. And then after that happened, a black Tahu 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.

8:23Back in town, one woman saw the videos as she got the kids ready for school. And she said she was thunder struck because one of the workers being cornered by agents. She has me put that. 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. So lo me dijo no tienen este con la hiposa. 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. He requested anonymity because he fears repercussions for his family still in the US. Me cojieron gendo para mi trabajo. 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 warehouse.

9:25They 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 US 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, depending on environmental assessment. But he does understand the outrage. The administration seems to have cleverly alighting that intention by sort of saying,

10:29we're not going to build this facility, but we're just going to use the space and 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 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.

11:35Because 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 Tenbeat Air Mies and Alina Hartunian. Our interim executive producer is Courtney Dornin. It's considered this from NPR. I'm Mary Louise Kelly. Stay tuned for the following announcements and messages from our sponsors. This message comes from Bombas. Whether you're outdoors or just lounging around the house, cool weather calls for a cozier footwear. Bombas makes the perfect slippers and shoes, built with smooth, premium suede, plush Sherpa and warm sheepskin shearling, all with layers of cloud-like cushioning. Perfect for staying in, stepping out and keeping things cozy all season long.

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