NJ lawmakers advance trio of immigration bills during tense meeting • New Jersey Monitor

A state Assembly committee advanced two bills aimed at protecting the immigrant community and limiting local law enforcement’s cooperation with immigration agents, roughly three weeks after the former governor vetoed similar legislation in his final hours in office.

Immigrant activists have been pushing for some form of the legislation to become law for more than a year, but they griped Thursday that one of the bills has been watered down since its last iteration.

“I have to ask, why is this the version of the bill you all have decided to introduce? What we need right now are more protections, not less,” Katy Sastre of immigrant advocacy group First Friends New Jersey told the Assembly’s public safety committee.

The bill in question would codify into law the Immigrant Trust Directive, a 2018 order from the Attorney General’s Office that restricts when state and local police can aid in federal immigration enforcement. The advocates say the measure that advanced Thursday omits provisions included in the prior bill that passed both chambers of the Legislature but ultimately did not become law.

They are calling for the bill to be amended, saying portions of it would not protect people with final orders of removal, or who have other legal protections like Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals and Temporary Protected Status. Others stressed that the bill would allow people to be deported after they have been accused of committing a crime, instead of being convicted of one.

“By definition, that person has not had their day in court, and they’ve not been able to offer evidence in their own defense. Practically speaking, that makes the bill a really ‘guilty until proven innocent’ bill,” said Sarah Blaine, attorney and organizer for the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism.

The meeting was tense. While arguing against a bill, Assemblyman Paul Kanitra (R-Ocean) raised his voice to criticize audience members for using language like “undocumented.” Assemblyman Joe Danielsen (D-Somerset) told Kanitra he was out of order and stopped him multiple times from continuing his comments. Some activists refused to take questions from Kanitra.

The bills that passed Thursday would: codify the Immigrant Trust Directive; limit what private information residents provide to governmental agencies and health care facilities can be shared; and ban local and federal officers from wearing masks in certain situations.

All three bills passed 5-2, with Democrats on the panel voting in favor and Republicans opposed.

The Legislature is taking a renewed look at the first two bills after former Gov. Phil Murphy vetoed earlier versions of them on Jan. 20. He said he was concerned the codification bill would open up the state to renewed judicial scrutiny (courts have upheld the directive). Murphy said he supported the data protection bill in theory but believed a language change would be necessary to avoid it conflicting with federal law.

Gov. Mikie Sherrill, who took office Jan. 20, has not commented on the legislation that Murphy vetoed.

Sherrill, a Democrat like Murphy, has taken a critical stance concerning federal immigration enforcement. On Wednesday, her administration launched a website that allows people to upload footage of immigration enforcement operations for the state Attorney General’s Office to review, a move her critics say encourages residents to intervene in law enforcement operations. She has previously said she supports banning immigration agents from wearing masks.

In New Jersey, 1 in 4 residents is an immigrant, and more than 500,000 residents are estimated to be undocumented. Activists have argued the directive should be law amid skyrocketing immigration enforcement across the country, noting that the order can be unilaterally withdrawn by a future attorney general (the current one, Jen Davenport, has told lawmakers she supports the directive).

Assemblywoman Annette Quijano, a prime sponsor of the data privacy legislation, said she was disappointed that Murphy vetoed it. Quijano called the measure a “repeat of something that we already discussed, voted on, and accepted.”

Debbie White, president of labor union Health Professionals and Allied Employees, said that immigrants in the country with or without legal documentation may not seek medical help because they fear their personal information will end up in the hands of immigration agents. The bill would help them feel safer to reach out to doctors, she said.

“We are in a new world. We need this bill passed into law to give employers the guidelines to develop these policies,” she said, noting that some health institutions have no policies for how to deal with immigration agents who may attempt to conduct arrests on the property.

Republicans heavily criticized the mask ban bill as a dangerous piece of legislation that doesn’t consider the perspective of immigration agents. The names and personal information of some immigrant agents have been posted online to target them, Kanita said.

He referred to some people in the audience on Thursday as “loony,” to jeers from the crowd.

“Hey, fun fact: This bill does nothing because there’s so many exemptions in it anyway,” he said before being cut off by Danielsen.