NEW YORK (BLOOMBERG) -- The Trump administration will temporarily house migrants at military bases in New Jersey and Indiana, according to a letter sent to Congress, deepening the Pentagon’s role in a historic expansion of immigration enforcement.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth signed off on a plan allowing Immigration and Customs Enforcement to use Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst — southeast of Trenton — to house migrants, according to a letter sent to Representative Herb Conaway, whose district includes the installation.
Housing people there and at Camp Atterbury, Indiana, “will not negatively affect military training, operations, readiness or other military requirements,” according to the letter from Hegseth. The letter twice misspelled Conaway’s name as Conway.
The move underscores how Hegseth has bound the Pentagon to President Donald Trump’s immigration agenda, an effort that his predecessors in Trump’s first term had resisted. Trump deployed active-duty troops to the US border days after returning to office, and Fort Bliss, in El Paso, Texas, has also been used to launch military cargo planes carrying out deportation flights.
In Los Angeles and Florida, hundreds of troops have been used to help augment security for ICE agents who continue to carry out mass arrests of migrants suspected of being in the US illegally.
The Pentagon press office didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment Friday.
New Jersey’s Democratic congressional delegation jointly condemned the move, calling it a misuse of military infrastructure.
“Using our country’s military to detain and hold undocumented immigrants is unacceptable and shameful,” the lawmakers said in a joint statement. “This is an inappropriate use of our national defense system and military resources.”
Hegseth’s decision comes after Trump secured more than $150 billion in new border and immigration spending through a sweeping Republican-backed budget package. The legislation includes $45 billion to expand federal detention and $30 billion to bolster ICE operations, including new staffing, transportation and infrastructure.
The Trump administration has long considered establishing migrant detention centers at military bases, including at Fort Bliss. During the first Trump administration migrant families and unaccompanied immigrant children were housed at military installations.