With President elect Trump assuming office in just a matter of weeks, New Jersey's immigrant communities are bracing for the promise of mass deportations.

And to keep up with that demand from the administration.

ICE will look to expand its ability to detain and hold immigrants, including here in New Jersey.

Over the summer, ICE notified private prison companies of their plans to contract with new detention centers in our state, according to court filings.

But the states locked in a legal battle to prevent companies from opening up new prisons here.

Taylor Jung our social justice writer, joins me now to discuss this proposed private prison expansion and efforts by advocates to protect New Jersey's immigrant population.

Taylor, great to talk with you tonight.

I want to know, what are you hearing from people in New Jersey as we get closer to the start of a Trump administration that's promised massive deportations when he comes into office?

There's a lot of concern in New Jersey.

There are over 400,000 undocumented immigrants in the state, and about a quarter of the state is also foreign born.

You know, are there's a significant immigrant population here.

And Trump has talked about ending birthright citizenship for certain families, deporting, you know, again, millions of immigrants across the country.

So people are just kind of wondering, will my family be able to stay?

Will I be able to stay?

Will we be torn apart?

There's also a potential that detention facilities could expand.

In New Jersey, I did put out a notice over the summer that they were looking for new facilities.

So again, any detention capacity could help support Trump's plans to deport, again, mass a mass amount of people across the country.

Under the Biden administration over the last four years and including the Murphy administration, we've seen efforts to close private prisons, including ICE detention centers.

Do you see that reversing under the Trump administration?

So, yeah.

Murphy a few years ago did try to put out a state law that would ban detention in general of immigrants in the state.

Now, that was partially struck down as unconstitutional and private prisons are able to expand and continue to exist in the state that's still being decided throughout the courts.

The state is appealing that whole decision.

So right now, again, there's a lot of uncertainty about what this could mean for private prisons and expansion.

Private prisons do account for a majority of immigrant detention across the country.

Biden has also gone into office promising to end private detention of immigrant facilities, so he instead has expanded it as well under his watch.

So again, it's not necessarily a political issue per se.

One party is responsible over another.

But Trump is, I think, ramping up some of the talk of immigrant detention and deportation.

And that's just where the uncertainty is, is like how could he actually carry that out?

What legal means will he use to make that happen?

Some of the criticism we've heard of private detention centers is that they actually don't deport people.

They keep them there so that they can continue getting paid for for that head, so to speak.

Have you heard any any criticism or any approach to to address that?

A few advocates and criminal justice experts have told me, you know, and I think one thing that private prisons will do is say, like you said, you know, we don't do any of the action like ICE actions.

We don't, you know, arrest people necessarily.

We're just responsible for holding them and keeping them safe.

But again, those advocates and experts have said, you know, what happens is that people end up becoming the commodity.

They are the product that is sold.

So these facilities say, you know, here's our price per head, and then they're awarded that contract.

And so, you know, in the eyes of some critics, it then becomes a financial gain for these companies to expand their operations.

Just really quickly, there's a lot of uncertainty around DOCA.

Trump has said that he believes DOCA recipients, those brought here when they were children by their undocumented parents.

He has said he believes they should stay.

He just said that recently.

Where could that program end up?

What are what are you hearing?

And certainly there's a lot of uncertainty and speculation around it.

It looks like Trump is trying to get you to get rid of a lot of these different programs, not just DACA again, ending birthright citizenship for children who are born of undocumented immigrants.

It seems like everything's on the table for him and he will find different ways to get rid of these programs.

Although he has said that he believes DACA recipients should be able to stay in the country as of recently.

Taylor Jung, thank you so much.

Great to talk to you.

Likewise.