“Advocates of sanctuary policies really don’t care if you live or die.” – Rick Moran
TRENTON-Governor Phil Murphy’s administration, led by Attorney General Gurbir Grewal and New Jersey State Police Colonel Patrick Callahan rolled out a new order to New Jersey’s police officers concerning the handling of illegal immigration in the state yesterday. That directive told police to keep their hands off the illegal immigration status of those they come in contact with daily. It’s being called the Immigrant Trust Directive.
Basically what it says is unless an immigrant commits a serious crime like murder or rape, ICE will not be notified. Even if they do commit those heinous crimes, ICE better get there fast, because the clock is not on their side any longer.
If the prospect of police officers being told to turn a blind eye to illegal immigration wasn’t scary enough for residents who fear the Garden State is becoming a sanctuary state, one line in the Attorney General’s statement should scare the hell out of everyone.
“With respect to detainees charged with violent or serious offenses – such as murder, rape, arson, assault, bias crimes, and domestic violence offenses – New Jersey law enforcement and correction officials may notify ICE of the detainee’s upcoming release, but may continue to detain the individual only until 11:59 p.m. that day.”
Why would a known illegal immigrant who has been accused of murder, rape or arson be released in the first place…at all?
There are three more chilling assumptions here that are added into this insane fear factor.
First, illegal immigrants arrested on drug trafficking charges are not identified in this statement by Grewal. So, it’s safe to assume that a department “may” contact ICE, but it’s not mandatory, but it’s not even recommended in the OAG’s release. An illegal who is caught trafficking drugs, if released by a judge because of a computer test score, is free to go without being interviewed by ICE?
Second, it highlights New Jersey’s failed bail reform and speedy trial act. Why is a person accused of rape, murder or arson and processed by local police officers being released at all? This directive handcuffs local police officer’s ability to ensure public safety by placing a restriction on how long ICE can show up before those hardened criminals are released back into society by bail reform system? That illegal immigrant police officers locked up yesterday for assault and battery will be out of jail and back on the streets, sometimes before the arresting officer’s shift even ends.
Third, if an illegal immigrant is accused of these heinous crimes and released by a judge who didn’t see the right computerized score hours later and released at 11:30 am, that gives ICE agents just 29 minutes to get to the jail to talk to them. Now these agents would have to put themselves in physical danger by attempting to reach out to the illegal at his place of residence.
It’s not like these things don’t happen. This highlights the extreme failure in New Jersey’s criminal justice system, proven by an incident that happened just two weeks ago.
An illegal immigrant charged in 2017 in Middlesex County was released despite an active ICE detainer request on the subject. After successfully navigating New Jersey’s catch and release criminal justice program, Luis Rodrigo Perez (pictured above) left the state and went to Missouri where he went on a two day killing spree, killing three people.
As journalist Rick Moran stated, “Advocates of sanctuary policies really don’t care if you live or die.”
If you don’t believe it really happened, you can read the full release here.
