AMY GOODMAN: U.S. immigration officials are facing new accusations of misleading local authorities about their activities in New Jersey. Earlier this week, ICE confirmed it had secretly used a federal government warehouse in Roxbury, New Jersey, to stage and process detained individuals in September. The Trump administration says the processing was done in the warehouse parking lot, but not inside the building. This was despite an order from a judge barring the site’s use for immigration enforcement action until an environmental study was finished.

Early this year, the Department of Homeland Security spent nearly a billion dollars to purchase the Roxbury warehouse and 10 others, with plans to convert them into ICE jails. After DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin replaced Kristi Noem and pledged a lower-profile style of enforcement, DHS announced it would sell several of the warehouses, but not the one in Roxbury. Roxbury is located about 35 miles northwest of the notorious ICE jail Delaney Hall in Newark, which has been the site of months of protests.

We go now to New Jersey to speak with Democratic Congresswoman Analilia Mejía.

Congressmember Mejía, thank you so much for being with us. You have exposed this story. What exactly is going on?

REP. ANALILIA MEJÍA: Well, thank you. Thank you. And first, let me say my heart breaks for the families mourning their children to such senseless violence in Oregon. It is heartbreaking and yet another reason why commonsense gun control is needed across our country. And hopefully, new momentum will take shape in the 120th.

Now, I’ll say, you know, this is not surprising to catch ICE and DHS essentially trying to skirt or cherry-pick which laws they actually adhere to. What is surprising is that they would finally tell on themselves. For some time, there has been escalated activity, ICE activity, terrorizing communities across my district, across New Jersey, across the country. Many activists, organizers, community members noted that they saw, they believed that there was activity happening at Roxbury despite a court order, and, thankfully, engaged with my office, other members of the New Jersey delegation, and we have persisted in trying to uncover the truth. We’re going to continue, because, again, ICE and this administration cherry-picks which laws it adheres to, and then breaks due process and equal protection for the many.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you explain more in detail what the laws are that are broken here and the significance of the amount of money that DHS spent buying this warehouse in Roxbury, New Jersey, as well as others around the country, and what they’re doing with them now?

REP. ANALILIA MEJÍA: Well, in the late spring, after ICE disclosed that they — their intention around this warehouse facility, New Jersey stepped in. And a court deemed, a court upheld a — issued an order stating that ICE may not use the facility at Roxbury as a detention center. They may not process individuals there. They may not house individuals there. And apparently, what has happened, on at least two occasions, ICE agents did go to this site, did take individuals there. They say that they processed several individuals on those two occasions. And then, when a Newark field office director found out that they were, in effect, in violation of the law, told them that they had to cease and desist.

But again, what this points to is an inability by ICE to adhere to court orders, an inability by ICE to be transparent, because community members and the state and my office, on multiple occasions, asked whether or not this site was being utilized. Finally, they have confessed that they are — they have been using this site. But again, the trust is broken with this agency, and it is exactly why we need to abolish and replace ICE. We need comprehensive immigration reform. The American people do not want chaos and violence, which is what this administration has brought to our streets.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you also talk about Delaney Hall in New Jersey, in Newark? You confronted DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin in June about Delaney Hall, describing what you called medical abuse, which included sporadic insulin, abuse of pregnant women, withholding blood pressure and other medication. Can you talk about what he said and what information you’ve gathered at this point?

REP. ANALILIA MEJÍA: Well, sadly, sadly, we gained very little information, because, again, this administration and across the board have been stonewalling both members of Congress, community members, refusing to answer questions about how, actually — how are they upholding, one, international law, our own Constitution, making sure that people who are in their custody are in fact kept healthy and safe.

We have to remember that this administration, in many ways, moved the goalpost. They took individuals who had temporary protective status and moved them from legal to illegal. They have slowed down the DACA process, again moving people from on the right side of the law, putting them on the other side of the law. And then, when you’re captured, even when you are trying to adhere to the law and follow the process for an asylum application or an immigration court, what we are finding is that these agents are violently taking people, turning their guns on people, and then housing them in prison-like conditions.

I have gone to Delaney Hall and the Elizabeth Detention Center on multiple occasions. And on multiple occasions — in fact, on every single occasion, I have encountered people who have complained that they have chronic health conditions, but they’re not receiving the medication that they’re required to take, that they have been prescribed by their doctors, that upon entering the facilities, their medications are often changed, or they’re given a handful of pills that they can’t identify. I’ve met individuals who, as you said, are pregnant and not receiving prenatal care that is required, including people with preexisting conditions and pregnancy, which, combined, make their pregnancies more vulnerable, are not given the care that they deserve.

Again, these are individuals that are not the worst of the worst, as Donald Trump tried to portray. These are gardeners and grandmothers. These are young people and women, mothers, fathers, individuals who have been trying to adhere to the law, who would like to be able to have due process and their day in court. But, unfortunately, this administration is just moving with a level of impunity and cruelty that, frankly, should shock every single American.

AMY GOODMAN: You have, as we wrap up, the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office saying it’s carefully reviewing reports of ICE activity at the Roxbury warehouse. Have you received an update on this? And GEO Group’s CEO told investors about the bed and facility expansion on an earnings call, not to Congress, not to the public. Can you talk about the significance of this being exposed by a private company —

REP. ANALILIA MEJÍA: Exactly.

AMY GOODMAN: — and not by the Department of Homeland Security?

REP. ANALILIA MEJÍA: Exactly. Now, this exposes what is actually underneath Trump’s ramp-up on immigration enforcement. Many Americans may not know that, essentially, two corporations own the majority or oversee the majority of detention centers in this country: CoreCivic and GEO Group. This is a massive, multimillion-dollar, if not billion-dollar, industry. In fact, GEO Group had a massive contract with our government in order to house as many undocumented people or process as many people as possible. I believe that this is the reason why you have individuals who, even when they’ve signed their own self-deportation orders, are held for months, because, again, every bed that is filled is an increase to that stock price and to someone’s bottom dollar.

But we have two corporations profiting from cruelty, and an administration that is willing, obviously, to take — to have this insider game in order to benefit those who are closely connected to this administration, at the expense of everyone. Again, the American people need to remember that it is your tax dollars that are paying CoreCivic and GEO Group to, in effect, mistreat people.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to thank you for being with us, Democratic Congressmember Analilia Mejía, representing New Jersey’s 11th Congressional District.

Coming up, Estrella: Bittersweet Freedom for a “Bad Mexican.” We’ll speak with Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Maria Hinojosa, out with a new documentary tracking the story of a trans woman who was jailed for almost a decade in Texas in a men’s prison, then deported. Stay with us.

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AMY GOODMAN: “Me Voy,” performed by Julieta Venegas in our Democracy Now! studio.