While a contract between Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has led progressives to battle with the all-Democratic Hudson County Board of Commissioners, a similar agreement in Bergen County has remained largely unnoticed.
The Bergen County Board of Freeholders approved a 15-year deal with ICE, then called the Immigration and Naturalization Service, in 2002 to provide detention facility services through the Bergen County Jail.
The agreement, with just a handful of modifications, is still in force.
Assemblywoman Valerie Vainieri Huttle (D-Englewood), then in her second year as a Bergen County Freeholder, voted in support of the agreement to house ICE detainees at the jail.
The deal at the time gave Bergen County a $3.75 million lump-sum payment in exchange for a commitment to allocate 150 beds for immigrant detainees.
Vainieri Huttle didn’t remember voting for the contract.
“I probably went with the majority,” she said.
At the time, the Bergen freeholder board had a 5-2 GOP majority and the jail was run by a Republican sheriff, Joel Trella.
The resolution passed 6-0, with Vainieri Huttle voting with the Republicans. The other Democratic freeholder, Jack Alter, was absent.
Vainieri Huttle dismissed the idea that her support to house ICE detainees at the Bergen County Jail was relevant to her campaign for the State Senate more than 18 years later.
“We’re looking at something totally different,” Vainieri Huttle said.
Vainieri Huttle, now an eight-term assemblywoman, faces Assemblyman Gordon Johnson (D-Englewood) in the June Democratic primary for State Senate.
Johnson had served as acting Bergen County Sheriff in 2001, but instead ran for the legislature when Democrats decided to run Assemblyman Charles “Ken” Zisa (D-Hackensack) for sheriff.
Kathryn Wertheimer, a spokesperson for Vainieri Huttle, criticized Johnson for “claiming to support the prohibition of ICE contracts while also touting the endorsement of Bergen County’s Sheriff who is responsible for continuing that very same practice in our own county.”
“This is about pure hypocrisy,” Wertheimer said. “Throughout her career in the legislature, Assemblywoman Valerie Vainieri Huttle has been a champion for immigrant rights. Valerie believes in putting in the real work, sitting alongside activists to craft equitable legislation, she has been there crafting progressive policy not just in a contested election year, but every year.”
This story was updated at 2:54 with comment from Wertheimer.
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