As the New Jersey legislature\nheaded home for the holidays, one member of each chamber decided to leave a\nparticularly dangerous gift behind for their constituents \u2013 a couple of bills\nto make the Garden State a permanent sanctuary for illegal aliens. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
New Jersey has a troubling tradition of pushing off controversial legislation, including contentious immigration-related bills, for the \u201clame duck\u201d session after elections but before the newly-elected legislature takes office. In most state legislatures, which are part-time, such opportunities to evade accountability by elected officials\u2014some of whom won\u2019t even still be in office in a month\u2014do not exist. In the New Jersey it seems like it\u2019s practically expected. Most recently with the the issuance of driver\u2019s licenses for illegal aliens. The legislature battled this out for over a year. Yet the actual committee hearings and floor votes on the bills were conveniently not scheduled until a month after<\/a> the November 2019 state legislative elections in order to ensure it would not become a significant campaign issue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now the legislature is up to similar games. This time with companion sanctuary bills. Senate Bill (SB) 4289, sponsored by Senator Joseph Cryan (D-Union, and Assembly Bill (AB) 6222, by Assemblyman Raj Mukherji (D-Jersey City), would codify New Jersey Attorney General (AG) Gurbir Grewal\u2019s \u201cImmigrant Trust Directive\u201d<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n The AG\u2019s sanctuary directive bans both state and local law enforcement agencies from almost all cooperation with federal immigration authorities. Before the directive, New Jersey was a patchwork quilt of different local rules, with some towns, cities, and counties having sanctuary policies while others prided themselves on working closely with ICE to keep their communities safe. In the wake of the directive, several local governments passed measures condemning it and refusing to obey it. Cape May County Sheriff Bob Nolan and the county boards of both Cape May and Ocean counties sued the state<\/a> over the directive arguing it violates both federal and state law. Litigation in that case is still ongoing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Currently, the AG\u2019s sanctuary\ndirective can be easily repealed by a future administration. By enacting the\ndirective into law, the bills aim to make it difficult to end the state\u2019s\nsanctuary policies in the future. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In addition to codifying the current sanctuary directive, the bills also copy a recently-enacted California law<\/a> to remove the word \u201calien\u201d from New Jersey\u2019s laws. The bill will replace \u201calien\u201d in New Jersey\u2019s laws with a variety of vaguer terms. <\/p>\n\n\n\n