Sen. Beach, Other NJ Dems Join Repub Effort to Unleash NJSP to Terrorize NJ Immigrants: STOP S4613!
Per NJ’s Immigrant Trust Directive, NJ State and local police deparments are directed by the NJ Office of Attorney General not to participate in federal enforcement of civil immigration laws. This protects NJ’s residents who need assurance that if they witness a crime or are threatened by crime or need emergency assistance that contacting police agencies would not jeopardize their immigration status. It also means that NJ taxes are not expended on excessive and politically motivated counter immigrant and counter worker terror campaigns like currently under way across the USA.
New Jersey Bill S4613 is intended to move the State Police from the control of the Attorney General to it’s own department under the control of the Governor. The immediate impact is to release the NJ State Police from the Immigrant Trust Directive – which means they can be called upon by US Department of Justice to participate in pursuit of ICE terror objectives for NJ.
I join NJ Black Clergy, New Jersey Citizen Action, Make the Road NJ, New Jersey Institute for Social Justice, New Jersey Policy Perspective and the Latino Action Network in demanding the failure of the passage of S4613!
As an immigrant rights activist, my perspective on this bill raises significant concerns such as the impact that it could have on immigrant communities by creating fear, discouraging them for seeking help and instead it might encourage State Police to increase disproportionate enforcement actions. With the US Supreme Court legalizing racist profiling by skin color, language and accent, there already is tremendous distrust among Black and Brown and non-English speaking communities of law enforcement. Increasing the distrust reduces the usefulness of policing in crime prevention and safety promotion. Removing the OAG as an oversight of State Police will encourage the state force to continue with its history of racial profiling and large legal loss settlements for illegal policing techniques.
What is the purpose of this drastic change? Who is going to benefit from it? The Republicans are the primary sponsors of this bill but NJ Senate Democrat James Beach, LD-6 is also a sponsor and there are two Senate Democrat co-sponsors: Linda Greenstein LD-14 and Patrick Diegnan LD-18.
The purpose was made clear by Sen. Michael Testa (LD1-R) who is sponsor with Democrat Beach and another Republican Anthony Bucco (LD25-R). He said he signed on as one of the bill’s sponsors because of OAG directives that limit police cooperation with federal immigration enforcement agents and divert law-breaking youth from criminal justice involvement. “I want the state police to have the handcuffs taken off of them and put the handcuffs on the criminals, where they belong,” he said.
With 15 Republican Senators out of 40 in the NJ Senate body, assuming they block up to support this Republican initiative bill, they only need 6 Democrats to pass the bill and they already have 3!
Even without this bill there is no guarantee that the Immigrant Trust Directive will be continued under the incoming Sherrill administration. It is clear that the intent of NJ voters who gave Sherrill a much wider victory margin than predicted in every poll was in part a call for NJ to resist the excesses and especially the ICE excesses in NJ of the Trump administration. There is across the board opposition and many Democrats routinely try to gain traction with echoes of some of the concerns of our immigrant communities and their defenders. Sherrill’s election was clearly a rejection of Trump linked Ciatterelli who had made clear his unbridled support for ICE terror.
But Sherrill when she participated in a police union candidate event stated that she “wants to let ICE do its job” and she has not clearly stated an intention to continue the Immigrant Trust OAG Directive. NJ’s Immigrant support community is united behind an effort to pass an Immigrant Trust Act in the NJ legislature to codify the intent of the Trust Directive – that would legislate a line between NJ policing and federal immigration law enforcement. Though there is a 49 to 31 Democrat majority in the NJ Assembly increasing to 52 to 28 from the 2025 election results, and though Democrats try to gain traction by voicing support for immigrants, the Immigrant Trust Act it seems is jammed up despite relentless community efforts demanding that it come to the floor and be approved.
Here are what I see is going on here:
- The willingness to approve Bill S4613, being mainly sponsored by a Democrat and two Republicans, plus 2 Dems and 3 Reps as co-sponsors says a lot about the soon-to-leave Murphy administration and the newly elected Governor “Dear Honest” Mikie Sherrill. This is how the UNIPARTY works together to screw us up, residents of NJ.
- Another billi ntroduced is S4868 , an ICE mask ban, introduced by Senator Benjie Wimberly, a Democrat from Passaic. The objective on the surface is sound: to enhance public safety and transparency by ensuring that citizens can identify officers they encounter. It includes exceptions for scenarios such as undercover operations, medical reasons, or situations involving heavy smoke.
I highlight undercover operations because this is a perfect excuse for the State of NJ to allow, AGAIN, the ICE thugs to come in here and do whatever the hell they want to any of us, immigrants of color, with an accent, or just for saying how disgusted we are with the terror our communities are facing. ICE will just claim the “undercover” exception and ignore any law passed.
It seems like advancing the Wimberley bill, (Wimberley coincidentally during his recent Assembly tenure was a primary sponsor of fascist IHRA codification) could be an attempt to sidestep the pressure to push the Immigrant Trust Act. Even if it passes – many ICE thugs do not wear the masks anyway yet they kidnap and brutalize and threaten us with weapons daily with or without the face coverings – so a mask ban does next to nothing to protect us. If anything the mask ban should be combined with ITA and not used as an attempt to prevent ITA.
DEMOCRATS ARE HELPING TRUMP COME FOR ALL OF US!
This is the most exciting part. These two bills plus the IHRA Bill S1292 which establishes State definition of anti-Semitism, see link https://legiscan.com/NJ/text/S1292/2024 , if tied together they will take care of any of us activists for immigrant rights, pro-Palestine or basically any pro-human rights and will take away the last of our freedom of speech that we stiil have. If on top of that we add the NSPM7 (National Security Presidential Memorandum 7), see link https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/09/countering-domestic-terrorism-and-organized-political-violence/, it will open the doors of hell for us and no one could save us, not even the pretending-to-be-savior Democrats.
As I mentioned before, I am an immigrant and an activist for human rights so I am in danger more than anyone else and I am risking myself even more by writing this but It’s no time for sweet talk or to be afraid. This is exactly what they want from us. I’m not going to give it to them!
