By Philip Sean Curran
Monmouth County Sheriff Shaun Golden, coming under fire from the state’s top law enforcement officer, stood by his decision to extend an agreement with federal immigration authorities to hand over illegal immigrants locked up at the county jail.
Monmouth County and federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have had the arrangement, known as a 287(g) agreement, for more than 10 years, Golden said. His predecessor, Kim Guadagno, first implemented it.
Taking its name from a section of a federal law, the agreement means the county checks the immigration status of inmates and contacts ICE when it finds those who are undocumented, the Sheriff’s Office said. ICE decides whether to get involved.
Such arrangements allow ICE to work with local law enforcement agencies around the country to help enforce immigration laws.
The county does not get paid any money for participating and cooperation is limited to those persons in jail.
On March 8 Golden signed the agreement, extending it for 10 more years ahead of the June 30 expiration date of the original deal. But state Attorney General Gurbir S. Grewal’s office said it had been blindsided by the decision and is looking for answers.
In November, Grewal issued an “immigrant trust directive” limiting the interactions between law enforcement agencies in the state and federal immigration authorities. Among the directive’s provisions, agencies could not enter into or renew 287(g) agreements unless they had approval in writing.
“These new rules are designed to draw a clear distinction between local police and federal civil immigration authorities, ensuring that victims and witnesses feel safe reporting crimes to New Jersey’s law enforcement officers,” Grewal said at the time.
The directive took effect March 15, but Golden extended the county’s 287(g) agreement one week prior to that. The attorney general’s office, learning of the extension through a reporter, fired off a letter to Golden July 8.
“The fact that no one in your office ever notified the Attorney General’s Office of its March 2019 renewal suggests that you deliberately declined to disclose this information over the past four months,” wrote Veronica Allende, the director of the division of criminal justice.
Her letter ordered Sheriff Golden to submit a copy of the agreement and provide other supplemental information, something Golden said he intends to do by July 30. Allende warned that Grewal would issue a new directive in August prohibiting officers in Golden’s department from carrying out the terms of the agreement with ICE if he failed to hand over everything Grewal was looking for.
“Director Allende’s July 8 letter made clear that the Monmouth County Sheriff’s Office must submit the same information required from any law enforcement agency seeking to enter into a 287(g) agreement, including multiple years of data, a statement of justification and the summary of at least one public hearing on the issue,” said Peter Aseltine, a spokesman for Grewal’s office. “The attorney general’s office will review the submission once it arrives.”
Golden responded to Allende, promising to deliver the information and expressing hope the state and ICE “can come to terms regarding this issue.”
An ICE spokesman could not be reached for comment. “Cooperation from the federal, state and local level is essential when protecting the public and ensuring that dangerous, undocumented immigrants are not released from jail in order to maintain the safety of our communities,” Golden wrote in a July 9 letter released by his office.
Golden told reporters last week that the “successful partnership” between his office and ICE has kept county residents safe. He said that in 2018 the jail processed about 7,800 people, of whom 40 were “identified as ICE holds and detainers” and transferred within 24 hours to the federal agency.
“There’s a little misconception out there that the Sheriff’s Office is out in our communities locking up individuals that are illegal immigrants,” Golden said July 10. “That’s not the case. This is strictly people that have been brought into the Monmouth County Correctional Facility with some type of charge, really serious charge.”
He said that since the state enacted bail reform, “only those with serious charges and unable to declare bail and be released are the ones that come in our facility.”
Last week Grewal’s office sent a similar letter to the Cape May County Sheriff as well, where an agreement with ICE was also extended.
“The governor and the (attorney) general have a certain policy. We run a certain program that’s in conflict with that policy,” Golden said. “We’re going to try to reconcile the two and see if we can continue our 287(g) program here in the county.”
This is not the first time Monmouth officials have waded into the immigration debate. In June, freeholders tabled a resolution declaring their opposition to New Jersey becoming a sanctuary state for illegal immigrants. The measure would have put the all-Republican board at odds with Gov. Phil Murphy, a Democrat.
Since Murphy took office in 2018, New Jersey has offered financial aid to undocumented college students, earmarked funding to help others with their immigration cases and challenged immigration-related policies of the Trump administration in court.
Frank Argote-Freyre, director of the Latino Coalition of New Jersey, said his organization has opposed the 287(g) agreement in Monmouth since Guadagno was the sheriff. He said the coalition supports the “right approach” of Gov. Murphy and Grewal to “keep local law enforcement, that’s county and municipal enforcement, out of the immigration business, to allow that to be done simply by the federal government.”
But Golden, also the chairman of the Monmouth County Republican party, received support from his fellow Republicans.
Thomas A. Arnone, freeholder director, said he thinks Grewal is “not right on this one here.”
Assemblywoman Serena DiMaso (R-13) said Golden has “a right and a duty” to uphold federal and state laws.
“I don’t know what the attorney general’s thinking,” she said, “but I stand with Shaun Golden on this one.”
