ROXBURY - Turns out the story a few days ago about the feds buying a Route 46 warehouse to house ICE detainees wasn't wrong after all.

It was just premature. On Friday afternoon, the township said in a statement:

"It is with profound disappointment that we must inform our residents that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has closed on the property from Dalfen Industrial within Roxbury Township."

Reports that ICE wanted to buy the warehouse and use it as a detention center surfaced in late December. Now it's official.

Besides disappointment, the statement from the all-Republican council, which has adopted a resolution opposing the idea, expressed some anger.

First at the property owner, Dalfen.

"It is extremely disappointing that Dalfen Industrial prioritized profits over community,” the statement said

Given the fact Dallas-based Dalfen is a national industrial real estate firm, it's no real surprise that it values finances more than "community." That's to be expected.

Now we come to Rep. Tom H. Kean Jr., whose Seventh congressional district includes Roxbury.

The township's statement said of Kean:

"Despite repeated outreach, our federal representative did not engage to the level we had hoped to provide the advocacy our residents deserved."

That's an unexpected indictment of the Republican congressman by the GOP council.

What's interesting - and what may prove more interesting going forward in this election year - is that some Roxbury Republicans are discovering what the press and many average residents have known for some time. And that is that Kean simply refuses to engage. When the first reports of the purchase popped up earlier this week, a call to Kean's office seeking his thoughts was not returned.

On that same day, it was Rep. Bob Menendez, whose district is about 40 miles from Roxbury, who rounded up most of the state's congressional delegation to join a release condemning the reported purchase.

Kean was not among them.

The statement also said the township plans to fight the planned ICE detention center in court, arguing that the site is too close to a residential area and lacks the needed water and sewer infrastructure.