Republican seeks to undo NJ police-ICE restrictions

A new bill would repeal key restrictions on local police cooperation with federal immigration authorities and allow state grants to support those partnerships.

An Ocean County Republican wants to repeal New Jersey’s restrictions on state and local police cooperating with federal immigration authorities, even as advocates and social justice activists warn the move would further frighten immigrant communities.

Proposed by Assemblyman Gregory Myhre, the bill, A-5725, would repeal a key section of a March law signed by Gov. Mikie Sherrill that generally bars local, county, and state police from engaging in racial profiling, asking residents about their immigration status, or stopping, questioning, arresting, searching, or detaining people based solely on that status.

Myhre’s bill, introduced Thursday, would also lift the prohibition on police departments entering into 287(g) agreements with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Those agreements allow law enforcement to perform certain immigration enforcement duties under ICE’s direction and oversight, according to ICE’s website.

“Essentially, any law enforcement agency within the state would be free to cooperate with federal immigration authorities,” Myhre told The Jersey Vindicator this week. “When I talk to local cops, they know what the problems are, but they’re prohibited from dealing with it in the most effective way. This is one of the ways to let them do that.”

The legislation would also establish a state-run grant program to support law enforcement agencies entering into, renewing, or expanding agreements with ICE, according to a draft bill provided by Myhre’s office. The bill does not specify a funding amount, leaving future appropriations to the Legislature.

The proposed grant program would be administered by the state Department of Law and Public Safety, which would be required to submit annual reports to the governor and Legislature evaluating the program and recommending whether it should continue or expand.

If signed into law, the measure would represent a significant reversal of New Jersey’s immigration policies, which have shifted toward greater protections for immigrants over the last two decades. That shift accelerated in 2018 when former Attorney General Gurbir Grewal issued the Immigrant Trust Directive, which became the foundation for the 2026 law.

That directive, which survived a federal challenge during the first Trump administration, sought to “ensure that victims and witnesses feel safe reporting crimes to local police without fear of deportation,” according to the attorney general’s website.

“The directive is based on a simple premise: to build trust, we must draw a clear distinction between state, county, and local law enforcement, who are responsible for enforcing state criminal law, and federal immigration authorities, including ICE, who enforce federal civil immigration law,” reads the directive.

The March law put many of the directive’s restrictions into state statute. It prohibits certain forms of cooperation with federal immigration authorities but allows police to enforce state criminal laws, comply with judicial warrants and assist federal authorities under specified circumstances.

Myhre’s bill would repeal the section containing those restrictions, rather than the entire law.

Repealing those protections would be a huge step back for immigrants, said Sally Pillay, director of the Mami Chelo Foundation, a New York City nonprofit that provides legal support and financial aid to immigrants facing deportation.

Pillay said 287(g) agreements have created chaos and anxiety for immigrants who fear that a traffic stop, jail booking, or police response could lead to their deportation.

“It funneled thousands of people from police custody into immigration [custody],” she said. “I’ve seen it during my years of doing this work: these bills have significant consequences. The expanded role of immigration identification, detention, and transfer is going to be humongous.”

Pillay pointed to a client who allegedly stayed in a violent relationship because she feared going to the police would lead ICE to deport the father of her children.

“People are already so scared, they don’t want to go to the police,” she said. “Many men and women who are victims of violence are basically risking their lives and safety to not report it because the police will flag them, subject them to an immigration consultation, and deport them.”

“I hope and pray this bill doesn’t go anywhere, because it’s definitely going to affect our immigrant brothers and sisters,” she said.

Priscila D. Abraham, supervising attorney with the social justice group American Friends Service Committee, echoed those concerns, saying that letting local police work with ICE would put people the organization helps at greater risk.

“Our clients and community members have been terrorized by what’s happening; they can’t walk down the street or take their kids to school without being in harm’s way,” Abraham said. “If we expand the pool of law enforcement doing this kind of work … it’s going to create an even more dangerous situation for people who are already being targeted.”

Abraham also said New Jersey tax money should not go toward furthering the Trump administration’s immigration goals.

“We have a separation of powers for a reason,” she said.

Ami Kachalia, associate director of policy strategy for the New Jersey chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), added that local law enforcement has a responsibility to the community. Local resources should go toward local issues, she said.

“What I hear from lawmakers all the time is that they want all New Jerseyans to feel welcome, to feel part of the community,” Kachalia said. “A law that would allow or even encourage law enforcement to collaborate with ICE would fundamentally be working in opposition to that.”

Myhre argues that police can’t pick and choose the laws they want to enforce and that New Jersey’s restrictions on cooperating with ICE directly challenge longstanding federal law.

“There’s no nation in the world that can exist without borders, without immigration control of some form,” Myhre said. “If you don’t have enforcement … I think we’d be foolish not to utilize our local resources.”

As for immigrants being frightened to report crimes, Myhre said anonymous tip lines and reducing the total number of immigrants would address those concerns.

“I think that example gets used a lot,” he said. “But if you have fewer illegal immigrants in a community, you’ll have fewer crimes because they simply wouldn’t be there. So, I think you’d kind of address that as part of it.”

It remains unlikely that Myhre’s bill, or an identical piece of legislation introduced in the state Senate, will become law, given the Democrats have a supermajority in the state Assembly.

It’s also unlikely that Sherrill, a first-term Democrat whose administration has repeatedly challenged the Trump administration in court, would sign a bill repealing immigration protections she signed into law just seven months ago.

In a Wednesday email, a spokesperson for the Assembly Majority Office declined to comment on the bill but made clear the party’s stance on immigration issues.

“We need to do all we can to keep New Jersey residents safe as ICE continues to terrorize communities, commit violent acts, and prey on immigrant communities,” the spokesperson said. “This is why the Assembly passed a bill codifying the Attorney General’s directive.”

“This bill and several other immigration protections were signed into law earlier this year,” the spokesperson said. “We are proud of our record to defend New Jersey’s immigrant communities.”

Myhre acknowledged that his bill probably will not make much headway in the Legislature. But he said it often takes many attempts to pass legislation, and he wants to lay the groundwork as soon as possible.

“We have to show people where we stand, and you have to start somewhere,” he said. “There’s no time like the present.”