Fight to codify Immigrant Trust Directive has key allies in Congress

As Gov. Mikie Sherrill settles into office, state legislators and advocates are looking to try again on a pair of immigrant-rights bills vetoed by former Gov. Phil Murphy, and they’ll have congressional allies in the effort.

Reps. LaMonica McIver (D-Newark), Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-Ewing), and Rob Menendez (D-Jersey City), who have formed something of an unofficial progressive trio ever since their now-famous May visit to the Delaney Hall immigrant detention center, had privately pushed Murphy to sign the legislation. They expressed disappointment regarding Murphy’s vetoes, but told the New Jersey Globe they plan to discuss the legislation with Sherrill.

“We have to do everything that we can in New Jersey to protect our residents from ICE,” McIver said. “While I’m disappointed [in Murphy’s veto], I am hopeful that in the new Assembly, with our new governor, we will see the bill come back, and we’ll be able to sign it into law.”

The three House members also have a major immigration-related vote of their own coming up in Congress today, on a bill funding the Department of Homeland Security for 2026. All three said they plan to join most of their fellow Democrats in opposing it — “I’m a hell no,” Menendez said — and went further to suggest that ICE needs to be dismantled and completely reshaped.

“ICE as it exists today should be abolished,” Watson Coleman said, a sentiment that was echoed by both of her colleagues. “What they’re doing is illegal, harmful, and disgusting.”

“Everything’s on the table with respect to ICE,” Menendez concurred. “I don’t see it being something that people can look to and trust in this administration, or in any future administration. And so it will take an entire rethinking and restructuring starting from the ground up.”

During the most recent lame duck session, state legislators passed a trio of bills meant to protect immigrants. Murphy, however, signed just one of the three, legislation directing New Jersey’s attorney general to develop policies requiring “sensitive” locations — like schools, hospitals, and courthouses — to remain accessible to all residents. On the other two bills, Murphy issued pocket vetoes, which cannot be overridden.

One bill that would have prohibited government agencies and healthcare facilities from collecting personal information like immigration status, Murphy said, featured a “drafting oversight [that] could jeopardize billions of dollars of federal funding,” but he expressed optimism that the legislature could quickly fix the issue and pass it again. The other bill would have codified the Immigrant Trust Directive, a policy that bars New Jersey police from cooperating with federal agents on civil immigration enforcement; Murphy’s longtime position had been that putting the directive into state law would make the state more vulnerable to legal challenges.

Murphy’s pocket vetoes, which came less than three hours before Gov. Mikie Sherrill took the oath of office, angered advocates who had been pushing the legislation since the Trump administration’s expansion of deportation operations. Watson Coleman, McIver, and Menendez said they understood Murphy’s reasoning but disagreed with his conclusion.

“My understanding is that he’s concerned about Trump and what he would do to New Jersey,” Watson Coleman said. “I guess he thought he was between a rock and a hard place. I know where his heart is. It’s always to protect New Jerseyans. I’m sorry that we just didn’t bite the bullet and do it.”

The effort to bring the bills back to the fore is likely to start again almost immediately; Assemblywoman Ellen Park (D-Englewood Cliffs), the original bill’s prime sponsor, promised to reintroduce the legislation after Sherrill’s inauguration.

“While these bills were not signed into law this time, our efforts do not end here,” Park said in a release. 

As governor-elect, Sherrill offered some praise for the Immigrant Trust Directive and suggested she’d keep it in place. During last year’s gubernatorial campaign, Sherrill expressed concerns about the Immigrant Trust Act — a separate but related piece of legislation more aggressive than the similarly named Directive; she said the Act could pose legal peril to the Directive — but hasn’t commented specifically on the two bills vetoed by Murphy.