A bitter fight over a 470,000-square-foot warehouse off Route 46 has erupted into a moral battle for the soul of Roxbury, a leafy, Republican stronghold, as some activists want Democratic state legislators to rename the township “Auschwitz” to protest what they call the Trump administration’s growing network of concentration camps on American soil.
The demand, which has inflamed an already tense political atmosphere, comes after the Department of Homeland Security confirmed it has purchased the industrial building with plans to convert it into one of the largest immigration detention centers in New Jersey, capable of holding up to 1,500 people pending deportation.
To its critics, the math is simple: when the government houses human beings in warehouses designed for parcels, processes them with assembly-line efficiency, and holds them indefinitely behind barbed wire, the nomenclature of history is the only appropriate comparison.
“I don’t want any inhumane concentration camps in my country, let alone right here in New Jersey,” said Heidi, a 50-year-old nurse who declined to give her last name, standing among roughly 500 protesters who lined the sidewalk this week waving signs declaring “Not a jail town.”
The activists’ call to rebrand the suburban Morris County community—a town of 23,000 that voted for Donald Trump in 2024—as “Auschwitz” is deliberately inflammatory.
It is meant to be. It forces a comparison that the protesters say is no longer hyperbolic but historically apt.
Roxbury may someday have a museum like Auschwitz, Dachau, and Manzanar. The Trump administration’s proposed concentration camp would be located at 1879 Route 46 in the Ledgewood section of Roxbury Township, Morris County.
The Department of Homeland Security purchased the 470,044-square-foot industrial warehouse in Roxbury, New Jersey, for use as an immigrant detention facility.
Auschwitz was not a single camp but a sprawling complex of over 40 concentration and extermination facilities established by the Nazi SS in occupied Poland.
It began as a prison for Polish political prisoners and evolved into Auschwitz II-Birkenau, where gas chambers murdered Jews from across Europe, Soviet prisoners of war, and sick Polish inmates.
At its peak, more than 700 victims could be killed at once with Zyklon B. The SS selected almost all children, women with small children, the elderly, and the infirm for immediate death upon arrival.
No one is suggesting Roxbury will have gas chambers.
But the activists point to the machinery: the roughly $45 billion allocated by the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” signed by Trump last Independence Day to expand immigration detention; the 48 percent of current detainees who have no criminal convictions; the 32 people who died in ICE custody in 2025; and the two American citizens shot and killed by ICE agents in Minneapolis last month.
“This is the Trump administration treating people like parcels,” said Nayna Gupta, policy director at the American Immigration Council, noting that the number of U.S. detention facilities has nearly doubled since Trump took office, from 114 to 218.
The town’s all-Republican council wants nothing to do with it. They unanimously passed a resolution opposing the facility, and Township Attorney Anthony Bucco—who also serves as the state Senate’s top Republican—said the town is prepared to pursue “all available legal remedies” to stop it.
“The water capacity simply is not there,” said Assemblywoman Dawn Fantasia, a Trump-supporting Republican who toured the site and found it has a single bathroom. “It is zoned for light industrial use.”
But the activists note that logistical objections miss the point. The building has loading docks designed for trucks, not intake areas for human beings. It sits in a development-restricted area of the Highlands with no sewer capacity for 1,500 residents. Yet the federal government bought it anyway.
Congressman Tom Kean, Jr., the Republican who represents Roxbury, has been conspicuously silent.
Kean refused to sign the Democratic delegation’s letter opposing the facility; he did not comment on the purchase and also ducked requests for comment as his constituents took to the streets.
He did, however, boast in July about his vote for the $170 billion legislation that funded Roxbury’s concentration camp.
“Border security is national security, and our approach to combating illegal immigration must be comprehensive,” said Kean.
Kean never got an endorsement from President Donald Trump in his previous races, but a May 8, 2025, Truth Social post said that the most vulnerable congressional Republican in the country has his “Complete and Total Endorsement” for a third term.
“A Tremendous Advocate of our America First Agenda, Tom is working tirelessly to Secure the Border, Stop Crime, Grow our Economy, Cut Taxes, Champion Small Business, Unleash American Energy DOMINANCE, Support our Brave Military and Veterans, and Protect and Defend our always under siege Second Amendment,” Trump wrote.
The activists who now want his district renamed for history’s most notorious death camp say they have seen enough of both compassion and thoughtfulness.
“We’ve had cops pull up for minor things, and everybody freaks out,” said Pablo Arceo, 20, who works at a Mexican restaurant near the proposed concentration camp. “Because today, even if you have your papers—which they all do—anything can happen.”
Across the country, the administration has hired more than 12,000 new ICE agents since Trump took office, offering $50,000 signing bonuses and reducing training from 22 weeks to 47 days—a number reportedly chosen because Trump is the 47th president. Spanish language training was eliminated; agents are told to rely on translation apps.
The administration has argued for “absolute immunity” for those agents, which would block lawsuits even when they kill American citizens.
In Minneapolis, federal prosecutors claimed exclusive jurisdiction after an ICE agent shot Renee Nicole Good, 37, in her vehicle, blocking state officials from obtaining evidence.
In Roxbury, the protests continue.
Another rally is planned at the intersection of Routes 10 and 46. The activists carrying signs comparing their town to Auschwitz know the comparison will offend. That is precisely its purpose.
“ICE’s most recent purchase of a warehouse in Roxbury to use as a detention center is an affront to the Roxbury community, who resoundingly rejected the prospect of a facility weeks ago,” said Sen. Cory Booker. “These facilities have no place in our communities,” but they are coming anyway because Booker remains no more effective now than he has been throughout his tenure in Washington, DC.
And in a town where the local Republican leaders oppose the facility and the Republican congressman will not discuss it, the protesters say history demands they scream.
Whether the state legislature will entertain renaming Roxbury is doubtful. But the activists have made their point: if the federal government insists on building what they call concentration camps in suburban New Jersey, they will ensure the world knows exactly what word they believe applies.
Discover more from NJTODAY.NET
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.