When former New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal issued the Immigrant Trust Directive in 2018, during the Trump administration, our state took an important step toward becoming a fairer and more welcoming place for all who call it home. After years of advocacy from the ACLU-NJ and partners, the attorney general’s directive placed guardrails around how and under what circumstances local law enforcement spends time and resources to assist federal civil immigration enforcement. Before these changes, many immigrant New Jersey residents had avoided accessing services they are legally entitled to have, out of fear that it would result in permanent separation from their loved ones through immigration detention and deportation. Everyone — regardless of immigration status — should be able to feel safe enrolling children in school, accessing medical care, reporting wage theft or seeking protection in the event of domestic violence.
By instructing law enforcement agencies to use their resources to address local concerns rather than carry out the agenda of federal immigration enforcement, the directive signaled a new awareness of how state participation in the federal deportation system compromises community trust and puts New Jersey residents at risk. In recent years, New Jersey has deepened its commitment to immigrant communities by providing drivers’ licenses for all, expanding language access, and increasing access to legal representation for detained New Jersey residents.
While the directive mitigated some of the harm that arises when local government collaborates with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, it includes exceptions that leave far too many people without protection. On any given day, ICE detains over 37,000 people — a 140% increase from the start of the Biden administration. In the past four years alone, ICE has reported the deaths of at least 43 people in its custody, 95% of which were likely preventable if ICE had provided adequate medical and mental health care, according to a recent ACLU study. Despite calls to address widespread abuse, ICE is instead trying to expand detention, including in New Jersey, where nearly one in every four people are immigrants and one in six have at least one immigrant parent. That’s why legislative action is needed — and why immigrants’ rights organizations across the state, including the ACLU-NJ, are supporting the Immigrant Trust Act recently introduced by state Sen. Gordon Johnson and Assemblywoman Ellen Park.
As we approach Election Day, rhetoric about immigration policy on the campaign trail has continued to dangerously escalate, with comments in recent days from former President Donald Trump signaling a return to an extreme approach to immigration detention should he be elected again. These threats that loom over immigrant communities make passing the ITA more urgent by the day — because its comprehensive protections are critical for empowering New Jerseyans to live their lives without fear.
The ITA would strengthen the directive by ensuring that local resources are used for local needs and programs — not funneled into the dehumanizing system of federal immigration enforcement. Ensuring New Jersey has these protections in place means our state is being true to its values of freedom and justice for all while building a firewall against ICE’s alarming detention expansion efforts.
The ITA would build on the directive’s protections through new data privacy policies at state and local agencies, preventing agencies from inquiring about immigration status when it is irrelevant to their work and safeguarding that information when it is collected. And importantly, the ITA would eliminate directive carve-outs that deny protections to people entangled in the criminal legal system and have a disproportionate impact on Black and brown New Jersey residents due to racial disparities in policing.
New Jersey has a responsibility to uphold its values of freedom and justice for all. And that includes passing the Immigrant Trust Act — because New Jersey should continue to lead in advancing immigrants’ rights at a time when our immigrant communities are under attack. All New Jersey residents, no matter their immigration status or that of their loved ones, deserve to feel safe and secure in the place they call home.
This piece was orginally published in NorthJersey.com.
