A federal Court of Appeal on Tuesday hit A New Jersey Law that banned immigrants in speculative installations. The decision by the US Third Circuit Court of Appeal delivers a significant victory to the Corecivic Prison Company, which has managed a Migration Detention Center in Elizabeth, New Jersey since 1996, given its close proximity to Newark Liberty International Airport. expulsion and made more than 2000 movements that have been holding in recent years.
Although the federal government could hold and take advantage of its own immigration detention centers, this operation was largely commissioned by private companies such as Corecivic. According to one analysis With Access Clearinghouse trading records since January 2025, “86 % of ICE prisoners were held in facilities organized by speculative entities”.
However, many of those held in private prisons have never been convicted of a crime. A report by the New Jersey Globe He found that 77% of prisoners at the Elizabeth detention center were described as “non -criminal”. At national level, 84% of prisoners of ice did not have a criminal record data obtained from the Associated Press.
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Referring to a need “to ensure respect for human rights and political rights of all people held in New Jersey” in 2021, the state legislator voted a law This has banned private companies as well as state and local government departments from entering, expanding or renewing any agreement on “housing or holding people for violations of immigration policy”.
Corecivic has sued, arguing that New Jersey’s law violated the supremacy clause, which states that federal law “will be the supreme law of the Earth”. The company’s legal challenge quickly won the support of the US Department of Justice, first under Biden’s administration and continued under the second Trump administration. The closure of Elizabeth’s “Mission” detention center, the federal government warned, will “obstruct [ICE’s] Law enforcement administrations in New Jersey and the surrounding area. ”
In 2023, a federal regional court homosexual With Corecivic, a decision confirmed on Tuesday by the third circuit. Writing for the majority 2-1, Judge Stephanos Bibas claimed that New Jersey’s law “intervenes in the federal government’s basic power to enforce migration laws”.
“Only the federal government has the power to decide whether, how and why keep aliens for violating the law on immigration,” Bibas added. “Only this has the power to make these contracts in the first place.”
Judge Thomas Ambro disagreed. Although it shared “the suffering of the majority, allowing New Jersey to influence the federal detention of immigration”, the court’s ruling “undermines the principles of federal and separation of forces”.
Corecivic Ryan Gustin spokesman said the company was “grateful” for the decision of the third circuit. In addition, he stated that “Corecivic does not enforce migration laws, arrests anyone who can violate immigration laws or have a reason, while the legal procedures of the person do not know human
“What New Jersey has achieved through the democratic process has now been overthrown by the judicial Fiat in companies whose mission is not to serve the United States Constitution, but to earn profits for their shareholders,” New Jersey Alliance said for the executive director Alliance filed a Brief For the case, along with the ACLU of New Jersey and over two dozen community organizations.
The decision of the third circuit expands a split between the federal secondary courts. In 2022, the ninth circuit hit A California law that also banned “private and detention facilities”. “To comply with the law of California,” Judge Jacqueline Nguyen wrote of the majority of the ninth circuit, “Ice should stop continuing immigration detention companies in California and adopt a completely new approach.”
But in the same year, the seventh circuit upheld A Illinois law that forbade state and local services from contributing to the federal government from holding immigration prisoners in their prisons – records this produced Between $ 4 and 8 million per year. Since the law was built by a previous reform that banned private prisons from entering such contracts, the seventh circuit decision ended effectively Migration reservation to Illinois.
To one statementNew Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin was “frustrated” in the third circuit decision and said the state had examined the next steps. “As recent events at Delaney Hall underline, delaying speculative companies poses serious health and safety risks,” Platkin added.
