Roxbury NJ Warehouse Detention Saga: DHS Reverses to Proceed July 13, Then Walks Back to 'Continuing to Assess' in July 20 Court Filing

DHS notified a federal court on July 10 that it was restarting conversion of its $129.3M, 470,000-square-foot Roxbury Township (Morris County, NJ) warehouse into an immigration detention facility — reversing an earlier June 29 decision to abandon the plan (2026-06-29–dhs-abandons-roxbury-nj-warehouse-ice-detention-after-lawsuit). Bloomberg reported the reversal July 13. Then a July 20 joint status report to the court said DHS is “continuing to assess whether to proceed” — an apparent walk-back of the July 8/13 reversal-to-proceed, producing a three-reversal chronology within roughly six weeks. New Jersey Governor Mikie Sherrill, Attorney General Matthew Platkin, and Roxbury Township are the plaintiffs in the underlying suit (2026-03-20–nj-roxbury-sue-ice-dhs-detention-warehouse).

The oscillating DHS posture suggests active internal and litigation pressure rather than a settled outcome: the $129.3M purchase from a Dalfen Industrial/Goldman Sachs joint venture anchors the asset financially, making resale difficult and giving DHS incentive to eventually proceed despite the litigation. Morris County (FIPS 34027) has no prior detention infrastructure and is roughly 40 miles west of Manhattan. This saga sits alongside other 2026 warehouse-detention fights the state/local resistance corpus tracks, including Salt Lake City/County (2026-06-08–salt-lake-city-county-sue-dhs-ice-warehouse-detention-conversion) and the Pennsylvania Berks/Schuylkill withdrawal (2026-07-22–shapiro-administration-ice-withdraws-berks-schuylkill-pa-warehouses).