(NewsNation) — A private prison company wants to open an immigrant detention facility in Newark, New Jersey, but state law may prevent it from happening.
In addition, the New Jersey Monitor reported Newark Mayor Ras Baraka said all legal avenues are on the table to stop GEO Group from opening its 600-bed facility.
A state law passed in 2021 bans state, local and private jail operators from entering contracts providing for the detaining of immigrants.
“To see them coming back is shocking and frustrating, that they continue to look at us as an opportunity to open up these ICE facilities that we rejected once, and we want to reject it again,” Baraka said during an interview with the New Jersey Monitor. “These guys need to know that we don’t want them here before they even try to get here, and hopefully that changes their mind.”
GEO Group, in a lawsuit filed in federal court last week, claimed the 2021 law is unconstitutional and will stop them from signing a $100 million contract with U.S. Immigration Customs and Enforcement to house migrants at a center located next to Essex County’s jail, the Monitor wrote. In August, a federal judge ruled that part of the state’s law is unconstitutional, which let CoreCivic keep immigrants detained in a facility in Elizabeth.
Baraka said the community has not experienced any negative impacts since Essex County ended its contract with ICE in 2021.