MIDDLETOWN – The Murphy administration’s policy to reduce state and local law enforcement support for federal immigration enforcement efforts was lambasted by the Middletown Township Committee as “harmful” in a resolution earlier this month.
The resolution was a response to Gov. Phil Murphy’s Immigrant Trust Directive, a policy announced in November and implemented March 15 that prevents New Jersey police officers from stopping, questioning, arresting, searching or detaining an individual based solely upon actual or suspected immigration status.
Additionally, the directive prohibits local law enforcement from asking an individual about their immigration status unless it pertains to an ongoing investigation and is relevant to the offense under investigation.
Authorities are also barred from supporting Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations, nor are they permitted to provide local law enforcement resources to ICE.
“We will never consider becoming a sanctuary city,” Mayor Tony Perry said. “I’m not going to speak for other communities or their policies, but Middletown has consistently been rated one of the safest towns in the country. We can’t sit by and let Trenton compromise the safety of our residents.”
Two years ago, the Red Bank Borough Council narrowly passed a resolution stating the borough would not turn its back on immigrants living within its municipal borders. However, the resolution did not designate the town as a sanctuary city.
“We had a fruitful discussion two years ago among the council members, police department and members of the human relations committee, and collectively, in a split decision, voted to be an open and welcoming community,” Mayor Pasquale Menna said. “Ultimately, we abide by what the state attorney general’s guidelines are.”
Attorney General Gurbir S. Grewal is New Jersey’s chief law enforcement official and the authority who sets the standard practices local officers and state troopers are sworn to uphold.
“The law says that the police department in Red Bank and Middletown and every other town in the state shall follow the attorney general,” Menna said. “You can pass a thousand resolutions and it won’t change that fact.”
Perry cited public safety as precedent for the township committee’s official action against the Immigrant Trust Directive, a similar stance to that of President Donald
Trump, who has made efforts to stop illegal immigration a priority of his administration.
Reports emerged last week that in recent months the Trump administration had broached the idea of transporting immigrants entering the country illegally, who are detained at the southern border of the United States, to small and mid-sized sanctuary cities.
The idea was first floated to ICE in November – when a caravan of Central American immigrants began their voyage toward the border – as a means to mitigate insufficient temporary housing.
According to reports, the idea was discussed again in February following a 35-day government shutdown, when the Trump Administration was engaged in a bitter budget battle, as a means of political retribution against uncooperative members of the Democratic party.
Perry said politics should be tossed out when it comes to the safety of residents.
“Safety should always be paramount. We have a responsibility to provide our residents with a safe community and we should be making policy decisions at the state and federal level based on that alone. No members of this township committee will ever put the safety of our residents second,” Perry said.
The resolution went on to express the township committee’s opinion that Gov. Murphy, a Middletown resident, and the state legislature should “focus on reducing spending and providing property tax relief to the legal residents and taxpayers of this state who are burdened with the highest property taxes in the nation.”
Middletown’s resolution against the Immigrant Trust Directive came on the heels of a similar resolution approved March 26 by the Freehold Township Committee, and preceded another resolution by the Sussex County Freeholder Board which will allow voters to voice their support or displeasure with the Murphy Administration policy on an upcoming ballot.
Hazlet Township passed the same anti-sanctuary city resolution at its government meeting April 16.