Will nominee for DHS visit NJ?
Kim offers his opinion on Mullin's promise
By: Charles Stile
Political Stile
USA Today Network
..... Someday soon, perhaps, likely new U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, a former plumber and onetime popular host of a home improvement show, will travel to Roxbury to determine whether a planned immigrate detention center has the proper water pipes, sprinkler system and other infrastructure,
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"Most municipalities don't have the capacity and the infrastructure for waste and water, so it's important that we're talking to the communities, and if we're having additional needs, we can work with the cities and municipalities," Mullin said under questioning from New Jersey Senator Andy Kim during his confirmation hairnet on March 18. [2026]
..... At one point, Mullin even walked up to the brink of canceling the project - depending on what the future show-and-tell visit could yield.
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While there "may be a specific reason why it's there," Mullin told Kim, referring to the planned facility, but "if I can;t explain that to you, then that's a different story."
..... This was orchestrated, soft-tone diplomacy by Mullin, a former cage fighter with a combative sharp contrast form the censor Kristi Noem, who President Donald Trump sent packing on March 5. [2026]
Mullin's charm offensive didn't have much sway over Kim, who voted against his nomination.
..... Mullin;s testimony came two days before New Jersey and Roxbury officials field suit against the Trump administration in federal court in Newark in an effort to stop the purposed facility. the legal maneuver was bipartisan and represented a partnership between the Democratic administration of Governor Mikie Sherrill and Roxbury's all-Republican township council.
..... In an interview on March 19 [2026 - after the Oklahoma Republican appeared to be on a glide path to Senate confirmation - New Jersey's junior senator made it clear that he was under no illusion that Mullin's pledge to tour the 470,000-square-foot planned human transfer station would lead to the scrapping of the project, which is clearly what the residents of Roxbury want.
.....Despite Mullin's professed open-mindedness opponents of the projects still have to contend with the closed, steel-trapped mind of Stephen Miller, the obsessed executioner of Trump's deportation dragnet, who has pressured immigration officials to capture 1,000 immigrants a day and process the for deportation.
..... The immigration crackdown was a signature 2024 reelection promise of Donald Trump, who was heartily supported in Roxbury. Trump carried the town by 14 points over Democratic Kamala Harris.
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But that was before federal agents shot and killed two American citizens in Minneapolis. that was before Noem, Miller and other officials falsely said that the victims were "domestic terrorists."
..... That was before images of heavily armed and masked U.S. Immigration and Enforcement officers began hauling away parents from their children, or migrants who had applied for asylum or just simply people they knew as cooks or landscapers or nursing home aides, quietly scratching out a living on the margins. And that was before the first year of statistics showed that most detainees had no violent criminal past, contrary to what Miller and Trump argued.
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Concerns over the size of the project and the strain it would have on the local water supply, on police and first responder services shaped the outcry in Roxbury, but fueling the MIMBY - not-in-my-back-yard - pretest is the violent aggressive conduct of ICE and other immigration officials. Despite all this, Miller remains deeply entrenched in Trump's inner circle.
..... "That's really what came into focus over this last year [2025] and that's why I couldn't support Markwayne Mullin's nomination," Kim told me. "It is because I know what it all leads back to - Stephen Miller."
..... Yet Ki believes that Mullin's testimony and pledge for an on-site visit was an "important" step in allowing the local and state officials a chance to make their case. Mullin boasted in the hearing of being knowledgeable about the strains large facilities, like this one sited on Route 46, can have on a community.
..... "It was important for him to say that he doesn't like the idea that ICE is doing this without engaging the local community," Kim said. "He raised concerns about the construction of these types of projects in area that don't have the level of infrastructure needed. It was important to have him on rerecord showing hat the way in which it has happen is not right."
Will Mullin come to Roxbury?
..... Mullin's willingness to engage is at least something. It's pretty safe to bet that if he;s confirmed and comes to Roxbury, he won't be parading around with a $50,000 Rolex in front of desperate prisoners, like Noem did in el Salvador. That was Trump-era performance rate at the most inhumane. Mullin is more likely to show up in Roxbury armed with blueprints.
..... there's a good chance that Mullin's visit will amount to another dog and poney show for the press and the anxious residents in Roxbury and maybe the voters of New Jersey 7th congressional district, whose Republican congressman, Thomas H. Kean Jr., is already being derided by fellow Roxbury GOP leaders as a no-show in the fight against the facility.
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But the same political forces that helped drive Noem from power may be the same force that could prompt DHGS and Trump officials to beat a retreat in Roxbury, regardless of Miller's power. Public opinion has turned on Trump's immigration policies, polls show. Voters in other Republican red enclaves ear rising up in opposition to similar ICE detention facilities, Kim said. Protests in Millin's home state of Oklahoma, where he served as a U.S. Senator until his appointment, also shut down a proposed project.
..... Unlike Roxbury, the project was scuttled when the owner of the property backed out of a planned sale. Still, the mood is changed and the Trump team frightened at the prospect of losing the House and maybe the Senate this fall, [2026] are looking for ways to calm public nerves. And politician necessity may prove to be more useful in stopping the project than any threatened lawsuit.
..... "They are feeling the opposition from the American people," Kim said of the Trump administration. He cited the ICE shootings of Rene Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis as the turning point. "The American people are so fundamentally and clearly opposed to what they're doing, and that is why it is we're continuing to press for the reforms."