A federal appeals court on Tuesday overturned a New Jersey law banning private operators from gaining contracts with the federal government to run immigration detention centers.
The 2-1 ruling allows prison firm CoreCivic to continue operating New Jersey’s Elizabeth Detention Center, which has drawn broad attention amid the Trump administration’s crackdown on undocumented immigrants.
“[J]ust as states cannot regulate the federal government itself, they cannot regulate private parties in a way that severely undercuts a federal function,” Circuit Judge Stephanos Bibas, a Trump appointee, wrote in the opinion Tuesday.
Judge Cheryl Ann Krause, an Obama appointee, joined Bibas in the majority opinion. Judge Thomas Ambro, a Clinton appointee, dissented.
CoreCivic is facing a similar battle in Kansas after Leavenworth County Judge John Bryant blocked the company from housing individuals in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) at a shuttered site.
Immigration officials were able to reopen the Delaney Hall facility in New Jersey under a $1 billion contract with the GEO Group as a private lender.
Some have suggested privatizing federal immigration detentions will help increase the speed of removals, making good on President Trump’s campaign promise to carry out the largest deportation in the country’s history.Â
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