New Jersey lawmakers passed a package of legislation aimed at strengthening the state’s immigrant protections on Monday, setting up a potential fight with the Trump administration as it scales up immigration enforcement across the country.
The package includes a bill that would codify the New Jersey Immigrant Trust Directive, first issued in 2018 by previous state Attorney General Gurbir Grewal. The directive restricts when municipal, county and state law enforcement officials can aid federal immigration authorities.
Under the bill, New Jersey law enforcement officials are also prohibited from stopping or detaining anyone based on race or ethnicity, “except when responding to a suspect-specific or investigation-specific situation.”
“We must ensure that everyone — citizens and immigrants alike — is afforded the protections promised by the constitution and treated fairly by law enforcement,” state Sen. Britnee Timberlake, a Democrat from Essex County and one of the bill’s sponsors, said in a statement last week after the state Senate Judiciary Committee advanced the bill. “No one should ever be singled out or targeted because of their race.”
Another bill would call for establishing policies to prevent federal agents from operating in so-called “sensitive locations,” such as hospitals and schools. A third would prevent state government agencies and health care facilities from sharing sensitive personal information with federal authorities.
Gov. Phil Murphy, a Democrat, has not said whether he plans to sign the legislation before he leaves office next week. His office did not respond to Gothamist’s request for comment on Monday.
The legislative proceedings are among the last in the state Legislature’s current two-year session. New York state lawmakers are also considering a measure to limit police cooperation with immigration authorities.
The move by New Jersey lawmakers comes amid heightened tensions nationally following the fatal shooting of 37-year-old Renee Good by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent in Minneapolis last week. A White House spokesperson criticized the bills last week, before that shooting, and said the state Legislature should “focus on protecting law-abiding citizens, not the criminal aliens who kill them.”
A spokesperson for incoming Gov. Mikie Sherrill, also a Democrat, did not respond to a request to comment on the bills. During her campaign, Sherrill declined to fully support passing the Immigrant Trust Directive into law, citing concerns over its ability to survive a court challenge.
“If this goes up to the Supreme Court, which it likely will, then that overturns other states’ mandates for how they're protecting people,” Sherrill said during a candidate discussion hosted by WNYC and NJ Spotlight News in May.
New Jersey Republicans have pushed back on the package, claiming federal law would supersede these measures. During an Assembly Judiciary Committee hearing last week, Assemblymember Bob Auth, a Republican from Bergen County, cited the U.S. Constitution’s supremacy clause in objecting to the bills.
Amol Sinha, executive director for the New Jersey chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, which is supporting the legislation, said the Immigrant Trust Directive has survived various court challenges in the past eight years, including one by the first Trump administration.
“The federal government cannot commandeer local resources in order to do its dirty work,” he said. “We've already seen [the directive] stand up as lawful and constitutional twice in federal court, including by a Trump-appointed judge.”
Amy Torres, executive director for the New Jersey Alliance for Immigrant Justice, said the measures’ supporters expect the Trump administration to try to stop them from taking effect.
“I think this will be a PR fight more than anything. But the truth is this is about what New Jersey does for itself, versus what it's beholden to the federal government to do,” she said.
In the 2024 presidential election, Donald Trump appeared to make significant gains with voters in New Jersey. He came within roughly six points of Democratic nominee Kamala Harris, about a 10-point improvement compared to his run four years earlier.
That apparent electoral progress by the GOP evaporated in November when Sherrill trounced Republican nominee Jack Ciattarelli by about 14 points in the governor’s race.
This story has been updated with additional information.
