Decried as ‘Garden State Gulag,’ South Jersey military base that will house undocumented immigrants faces continued criticism

The South Jersey military base that’ll become a deportation center for undocumented immigrants has earned a new and uncomplimentary nickname: the “Garden State Gulag.”

Rep. Herb Conaway Jr., a Democrat whose Burlington County district includes what’s now called Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst where the facility will be created, invented the sobriquet in a statement Monday. He serves on the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee.

“First, they made 'Alligator Alcatraz,’” Conaway said, referring to a controversial new detention center in the Florida Everglades. “Now, it’s the Garden State Gulag … [which] I oppose … in the strongest possible terms.”

The new charge for the joint base is part of a stepped-up effort by the Trump administration to remove undocumented immigrants. As the Trump administration moves forward, however, polling shows that not all Americans are on board. In a CNN poll released Sunday, for example, 55% of Americans surveyed said the president has “gone too far” when it comes to deporting “immigrants living in the U.S. illegally,” up 10 points since February.

On Monday, it was unclear when detainees will begin to be transported to the joint base.

Conferring a new mission on the base Friday, the Trump administration riled some people in the Garden State who said Monday that they don’t like being associated with amassing immigrants for deportation.

“We are a nation of immigrants, and our immigration system should be rooted in fairness, not fear,” Democratic Assemblyman Troy Singleton of Burlington County said in a statement Monday. “Our military installations … should not be politicized or used to sow fear or division.⁠"

Others support the proposed deportation center.

“The open border policies under President Biden led to an untenable situation,” said State Sen. Latham Tiver, a Republican whose 8th District includes Burlington County. He’s a member of the military and veterans’ affairs committee.

“I don’t pretend to have all the answers on how to carry out deportations,” Tiver said in an statement, adding that he nevertheless has confidence in those who serve at the joint base.

They are, he concluded, “highly capable individuals who can handle any situation thrown at them with reliability and humanity.”

On Monday in Pemberton Township, where most of the joint base is located, people were confused and concerned that a longtime neighbor will be participating in a new undertaking.

“The federal government has a right to do what wants within its own property, but I don’t feel like it should be in my backyard, five miles from my house,” said Alexander Costa, 21, a senior at Rowan University studying criminal justice. It’s not because he fears immigrants, he said, but because the proximity of a facility like this could be viewed as an “affront.”

Costa called the partial repurposing of the joint base a “touchy subject.” Yes, he added, the federal government should chase down and force out undocumented criminals in our midst.

“But,” he went on, “after you take away the violent people, there has to be a better way than to incarcerate the remaining people on a military base.”

Much of what Costa said dovetails with a statement from the county’s five Democratic commissioners, who asserted in a statement on Friday that “overzealous” deportation efforts “cause fear and division, and … [have] no place in our federal military installations or in Burlington County.”

At lunch in the township of around 27,000 people in the Pine Barrens on Monday, Elizabeth McCartney, 63, a nurse and former teacher, was unequivocal in her condemnation of the newest detention center.

“I’m against the whole idea of detaining immigrants,” she said, “and the whole concept that our country would be doing this.”

McCartney, who’s lived in Pemberton Township since 1969, said she remembers when the joint base took on the humanitarian mission of housing people fleeing conflict.

In 2021, amid the chaotic evacuation of Kabul as Afghanistan fell to the Taliban, the base was one of eight U.S. military installations to serve as “safe havens” for evacuated war allies and their families. The encampment was basically a small town behind gates and fences, home to 3,377 families.

“Some of those Afghan kids came to school in our township,” McCartney said. “I remember that they fit in well.”