LAKEHURST – A plan to utilize Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst as a holding facility for undocumented immigrants has been dropped by the government. The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) recently issued a report noting it would be a waste of taxpayer dollars.
The GAO report noted that urgent planning would be needed to avoid further waste of taxpayer dollars and within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is the lead agency responsible for providing safe, secure and humane confinement for detained noncitizens in the country.
A January 2025 executive order directed DHS to detain individuals apprehended for violations of immigration law to the extent permitted by law and to allocate all available resources for ICE detention purposes. “Since that time, ICE’s funding for immigration detention facilities has increased significantly, rising to unprecedented levels.”
It cited in the 2025 fiscal year the agency’s annual appropriation for detention facilities totaled approximately $3.8 billion and in July 2025 the Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) provided ICE with $45 billion for detention capacity through the fiscal year of 2029.
The report went on to note that officials of GAO toured a detention facility at Fort Bliss in El Paso Texas and noted that Department of Defense (DOD) officials and ICE stated they no longer planned to move forward with detention centers at the Joint Base and in Indiana.
DOD officials stated in October 2025 that they weren’t planning to build detention facilities on other military installations according to the report.
Despite the GAO report stating no detention facilities are planned at military facilities in the future, “ICE has not rescinded its February 2025 request for assistance, and the agreement remains active as of August 2026.”
According to the report, poor planning was a major part of the scale back. It noted that since January 2025, “ICE has invested significant resources in six new initiatives to expand its detention capacity. However, as of July 2026, ICE has scaled back four of those initiatives, resulting in wasted, or potentially wasted resources.”
The GAO report gave the example of the Fort Bliss detention center that had contracted meals that were set to the maximum occupancy level but didn’t account for occupancy being less than the maximum and as a result, ICE paid about $7.1 million for meals it didn’t need from October 1, 2025 to March 12, 2026.
ICE spent $1.07 billion nationally to purchase 11 warehouse facilities to transform into detention centers but now they plan to sell seven of those warehouses because the DHS “had not conducted appropriate due diligence and planning”
In addition, $7.7 million was spent by ICE on nonrecoverable costs that included zoning assessments and title insurance to buy those warehouses that they are now selling according to the GAO report. ICE is still paying for utilities and services at the warehouses at an estimated cost of $12.8 million at the current time.
It was noted in the report that if the government sells those seven warehouses “for far less than ICE’s purchase price of $707 million, that will result in additional waste.”
Many existing detention sites have seen protests, with public officials questioning the treatment of the alleged undocumented prisoners of those facilities within the last year. Some public officials have also been charged by ICE for entering areas where they sought to inspect the facilities to determine if the prisoners were being properly treated. In most cases those charges were later dropped.
Some facilities set to be built in areas of the country have also been protested noting that elected officials and community residents did not want such a facility constructed or a structure repurposed there.
Toms River was home to a protest that took specific aim at the plan to confine undocumented immigrants at the Joint Base.
That rally held on a hot summer day was based in front of the Ocean County Veterans Administration Building on Hooper Avenue and coordinated by the Democratic Coalition of Ocean County (DCOC), Young Democrats of Ocean County, Jersey Shore Blue and the Toms River Democrats.
The late afternoon protest held in 85-degree weather carried a name that represented its theme, “Choose to Welcome: Not Imprison” and DCOC spokeswoman Sharon Quilter stated at the time, “we are horrified this government wants to repurpose Fort Dix as a prison for immigrants. We are making our displeasure known.”
