On August 20, 2021, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy, signed Assembly Bill AB 5207 into law. It prohibited new contracts (Inter Governmental Service Agreements, aka IGSAs) between immigrant detention facilities and ICE (inclusive of private, state and local prisons) and required that existing IGSA contracts be phased out. “In keeping with its obligation to protect and advance the health and just treatment of all people within the State of New Jersey, it is therefore the intent of the Legislature to prevent new, expanded, or renewed agreements to detain people for civil immigration purposes.”[1]

The language of the final Bill which was signed by Governor Murphy did not specifically name the federal government in the Bill. Between the time AB 5207 was passed by the New Jersey Assembly and while it sat on Governor Murphy’s desk to be signed into effect, CoreCivic, one of the largest private prison corporations in the country and the operator of the Elizabeth Detention Center in Elizabeth, NJ, managed to extend its contract by two years.[2] In February 2023, CoreCivic, supported by the Biden administration’s Justice Department, challenged the constitutionality of the law.

A Judicial Decision Comes Down re: AB 5207, August 29, 2023

Judge Kirsch ruled in favor of CoreCivic. The Judge’s opinion stated that New Jersey’s law

AB 5207 was unconstitutional because it violated the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution. He explained that the Supremacy Clause provides that the Constitution and the laws of the United States are the Supreme Law of the Land and therefore prevent the State Courts from allowing State laws to supersede federal law. State laws must yield to federal law. Within the Supremacy Clause is the Intergovernmental Immunity Doctrine which is interpreted to mean that a State cannot interfere with the operations of the federal government.

AB 5207 would impose on the United States an intolerable choice between either releasing federal detainees or carrying out detention in an entirely novel way. “AB 5207 both violates the intergovernmental immunity doctrine and is preempted by federal law granting the federal government exclusive discretion over whether and how to detain individuals for immigration offenses. Detention, in the context of immigration, is a function that is and has always been performed solely by the federal government.[3]

It is the right of the federal government to choose the mechanisms by which it detains individuals for civil immigration violations. The Judge determined that if AB 5207 were enforced, then ICE would no longer have any facilities in New Jersey to house immigration detainees. Kirsch further opined that should other states pass similar laws, the federal government would be unable to detain many non-citizens who are national security risks, would greatly increase the costs to the federal government by forcing ICE to transfer detainees to other states or build and operate its own facilities which is neither “practical nor legally possible.”

In his ruling, Kirsch addressed the State of New Jersey’s argument that it did not violate the Intergovernmental Immunity Doctrine because AB 5207 does not regulate the actions of the federal government because it applies only to private entities that contract with the federal government. Addressing the fact that the federal government is not named in AB 5207 Judge Kirsch wrote “New Jersey cannot accomplish what it cannot do directly, enjoining the federal government from detaining individuals for civil immigration violations, by simply omitting the federal government’s name from the law”[4] The judge allowed an injunction blocking enforcement of the law AB 5207 by the State of New Jersey. As the injunction only pertained to the parties involved in the original lawsuit, Geo Group filed suit as well, with intention to re-open Delaney Hall in Newark, New Jersey as an ICE Detention Center.

The Elizabeth Detention Center remained open as an ICE detention center. The decision rendered by Judge Kirsch, finding the New Jersey Law, AB 5207 unconstitutional, directly led to the reopening of Delaney Hall in Newark, NJ as a facility for ICE detention in May of 2025 and is the basis upon which ICE has purchased and may be able to open other immigrant detention sites in the state.

Since this ruling, the state of New Jersey has tried other tactics to legally limit immigration enforcement and detention. On March 25, 2026, New Jersey Governor Mikie Sherrill signed into law three bills which codify, or make permanent, protections specified in the Immigrant Trust Directive (ITD) put forth by the Attorney General of New Jersey in 2018. The ITD limited cooperation between local law enforcement agencies within the State and ICE. The second bill restricts law enforcement from sharing a person’s immigration status and personal identifying information, such as date of birth or Tax ID number, without a judicial warrant. The third law prohibits ICE enforcement officers from wearing face masks when interacting with the public. When DHS purchased a large warehouse in Roxbury, NJ, activists and state officials utilized environmental laws to argue that the facility would overburden the town’s water supply and sewage treatment capacity. In May 2026, shortly before a judge was going to hear these arguments, DHS halted the site’s conversion into a detention center while conducting an environmental review.

[1] “An Act concerning correctional and detention facilities and supplementing Title 30 of the Revised Statutes.”, P.L.2021, c.199 (Public Law 2021, Chapter 199)

[2] Nancy Heimstra and Deirdra Conlon, 2025, Immigration Detention Inc:The Big Business of Locking Up Migrants, London, England: Pluto Press, pg 138

[3] CoreCivic, Inc. v. Murphy. Civil Action No. 23‑967 (RK) (TJB), U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey. Accessed at https://cases.justia.com/federal/district-court/new-jersey/njdce/3:2023c....

[4] CoreCivic, Inc. v. Murphy, Civil Action No-23-967 (RK) (TJB) https://cases.justia.com/federal/district-courts/new-jersey/njdce/3:2023....