Clad in a light-colored shirt, the thirtyish man hustled to a car parked on Suydam Street and Railroad Avenue in New Brunswick. He lifted the hatchback and threw an item inside. It was nearly 6:45 a.m. on Thursday, Jan. 15. The man’s walk toward the vehicle was captured by a nearby video camera.
Another car pulled up and then another. Men emerged from each vehicle, apparently federal agents. One agent sprinted to their suspect’s car, grabbing the driver’s side door before it could be closed. A third car carrying an agent soon arrived. Within a two-minute span, the man in the light-colored shirt was apprehended by the three agents, taken to one of their cars, and driven away.
Similar pictures and stories from Central Jersey communities are becoming more common if you spend a few minutes daily scanning area news sites. Only two weeks ago, an apprehension occurred in neighboring Warren Township. Still photos of an immigration bust were quickly plastered on Warren’s community Facebook pages.
The federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) crackdown on the region’s undocumented population is becoming routine. It even quietly touched Middlesex Borough in 2025.
Police Chief Matt Geist confirmed to Inside – Middlesex that Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) conducted an operation at a commercial facility in the borough last year. It is the only Middlesex 2025 immigration bust that Geist said he is aware of. “In this case they notified our police department prior to the operation, but we did not assist and were not involved in the operation/investigation,” the chief wrote in an email.
Geist gave no further details and referred questions on the matter to HSI’s Newark Office. HSI is a division of ICE. An email to that office seeking details has not been returned as of the publication of this post.
What appeared to be another apprehension in New Brunswick by federal agents on Wednesday, Jan. 28 was captured in a drive-by video posted online by New Brunswick Today. Two men clad in dark clothes walked another man down the street who they seemed to have arrested. Those driving by as the scene unfolded, might not have realized what was occurring. There were no crowds of protesters on the scene, drawing attention to the operation, as has occurred recently in American cities like Minneapolis.
As ICE’s regional presence increases, so too does the discussion over ongoing immigration enforcement. Like many current issues there’s a range of opinions. Some support the stepped-up apprehensions, others question ICE activities at every turn.
Debate has even spilled over into one Middlesex County municipal government. Immigration enforcement and ICE’s tactics spurred comments from Old Bridge Township Council President Anita Greenberg-Belli at a Tuesday, Jan. 27 meeting. She urged constituents to stop calling ICE agents Nazis and criticized protesters for “demonizing” agents for doing their job.
“I do want to say all life is precious and it’s a tragedy to see anyone get killed,” Greenberg-Belli said of recent events in Minneapolis. “But not only that, we have to recognize that ICE is not the problem,” she said. “Peaceful protesting is one thing. Disruption is another thing.”
Greenberg-Belli, a Republican, said she believes in law and order and is against violence.
“But you can’t go around calling people that are doing their job, that work for the federal government, the state or local government, Nazis when they’re doing their job protecting communities,” she said.
Meanwhile, Democratic Gov. Mikie Sherrill announced this week that her administration will create an online portal for residents to report encounters with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.
“We are also going to be setting up a portal so people can upload all their cellphone videos and alert people,” Sherrill said. “If you see an ICE agent in the street, get your phone out. We want to know.” The new portal mirrors efforts that protesters have undertaken in other United States locales to track the public activity of federal agents.
“They have not been forthcoming,” Sherrill said of ICE operations. “They will pick people up. They will not tell us who they are.”
The Migration Policy Institute (MPI), an independent, nonpartisan, non-profit think tank based in Washington, D.C. estimates there are 476,000 unauthorized immigrants living in New Jersey. More than one-third of them or 173,000, are believed to have lived in the Garden State for 20 years or more.
About half of the state’s unauthorized population or 236,000, is between the ages of 25 and 44. Those under age 16 are estimated at 30,000 or about 6% of the total.
MPI estimates that Middlesex County’s unauthorized population is 44,000 with 4,000 of that total being age 18 or younger. Nearly half of the county’s unauthorized population does not have health insurance, MPI estimates. One-quarter of the total or 11,000 people, are homeowners.
New Jersey’s total population was estimated at just over 9.5 million people in mid-2025, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
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