DHS Abandons $130M Roxbury NJ Warehouse ICE Detention Plan After Bipartisan State Lawsuit and NEPA Delay

On June 29, 2026, Governor Mikie Sherrill and Attorney General Jennifer Davenport confirmed in a joint statement that DHS has abandoned plans to convert a 470,000-square-foot warehouse on Route 46 in Roxbury Township, Morris County, NJ — purchased by DHS for roughly $130 million in February 2026 — into a 1,500-person ICE detention processing center. The reversal caps a model local-resistance arc: federal acquisition (Feb) → a bipartisan APA/NEPA lawsuit by the governor, AG, and township (2026-03-20–nj-roxbury-sue-ice-dhs-detention-warehouse) → a May 12 court stipulation requiring a NEPA environmental assessment → abandonment. The warehouse is now expected to be sold back. (The abandonment announcement itself rests on a tier-3 outlet plus the tier-2 NJ Monitor delay reporting and the tier-1 NJ.gov lawsuit release; tier-1 confirmation of the abandonment would further harden it.)

This is the first clear closed-victory outcome in the warehouse-conversion resistance lane the timeline tracks, joining the NEPA-driven pauses in 2026-04-15–hurson-maryland-nepa-precedent-bexar-tx-warehouse-pause and 2026-04-15–judge-halts-williamsport-ice-construction-nepa, and running parallel to the still-live Salt Lake fight (2026-06-08–salt-lake-city-county-sue-dhs-ice-warehouse-detention-conversion). The tri-level NJ coalition (governor + AG + township) and the APA + NEPA + Intergovernmental Cooperation Act legal theory are the replicable playbook; the open lead is who buys the $130M warehouse back and whether DHS absorbs the loss.