Democratic lawmakers in New Jersey — emboldened by convincing wins in November — are poised to expand migrant rights, an effort seen as a defiant and provocative statement of principle in a state with the country’s second-largest percentage of immigrants after California.

On Monday the state Legislature is scheduled to vote on measures that would reinforce existing protections and make it more difficult for federal agents to target immigrants in the country illegally for deportation. The legislation has already drawn criticism from the Trump administration, which has expanded deportation efforts across the country over the past year.

The push comes months after immigration and deportation became divisive issues in the governor’s race.

Mikie Sherrill, New Jersey’s Democratic governor-elect, assiduously avoided taking a clear position during the campaign on the state’s Immigrant Trust Directive, a policy enacted in 2018 to limit how much help local law enforcement officers can offer federal immigration agents. At the time, her Republican opponent, Jack Ciattarelli, was vowing to repeal the directive on Day 1 as he tried to appeal to voters supportive of President Donald Trump’s efforts to increase deportations.

The conversation has grown only more complex since then and gained new intensity last week after a federal immigration agent shot and killed Renee Good, a U.S. citizen, during an enforcement action in Minnesota.

“We recognize we have no ability to direct ICE,” said Nedia Morsy, director of Make the Road New Jersey, an immigrant rights group supportive of the package of legislation. “But we can make it very clear that New Jersey has consistently been committed to honoring people’s due process rights, and it’s important that legislators are taking this moment to underline that commitment.”

Legislation Moves To Cement Immigrant Trust Protections

The bills have been pushed most ardently in the state Assembly, which is led by Craig Coughlin, whose district abuts Edison, a diverse suburb where two of the region’s largest warehouse immigration raids took place. In November, the Democrats’ already large majority in the Assembly grew even more formidable as voters overwhelmingly rejected Ciattarelli, who was endorsed by Trump and who embraced much of the president’s far-right ideology during the campaign.

Monday’s votes come a week after a White House spokesperson criticized the bills in a statement that urged the Legislature to protect “law-abiding citizens, not the criminal aliens who kill them.”

The push to adopt the three bills, versions of which have languished in the Legislature for years, comes in the final week of a two-year legislative cycle, just days before Sherrill is set to take over as governor.

To be enacted, outgoing Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy would need to sign the three bills into law before noon Tuesday if they were approved in the Assembly and Senate, where versions of the legislation cleared key committees last week. He could also issue a conditional veto, requesting specific amendments.

Bills Would Limit Cooperation with ICE

One bill would give the guidelines contained in the Immigrant Trust Directive, enacted by a former attorney general, Gurbir Grewal, the force of law, making it harder for a future administration to undo. A second piece of legislation would require the state to write “model policies” to protect the rights of New Jersey residents at sensitive locations, including schools, courthouses, shelters, jails and health care facilities.

Under the bill, the state would be expected to provide instruction to employees of these so-called safe spaces about when and where federal agents are permitted to enforce civil immigration laws — and when and where they are not.

A third bill would safeguard personal information held by health care facilities and government agencies, including the Department of Motor Vehicles, and limit its release to federal authorities. Immigrants in the country illegally have been able to obtain driver’s licenses in New Jersey since 2019, leaving details about their personal lives vulnerable to scrutiny by federal immigration authorities.

Federal Crackdowns and Local Backlash Intensify Debate

A spokesperson for Sherrill said that she would not comment on pending legislation but noted that she had indicated support for the goals of the Immigrant Trust Directive.

Trump made significant inroads in New Jersey in 2024, winning more votes than his Democratic opponent, former Vice President Kamala Harris, in more than half the state’s counties. But his administration’s immigration policy has been particularly contentious in the state.

Soon after taking over, the Trump administration authorized a $1 billion contract with a private prison company to reopen Delaney Hall, a 1,000-bed jail near Newark Liberty International Airport, as a migrant detention facility.

In May, Newark’s mayor, Ras J. Baraka, and the city’s U.S. representative, LaMonica McIver, were charged with crimes stemming from a brief but volatile clash with federal agents. The next month, four men escaped through a flimsy wall at Delaney Hall during unrest over meager food portions and crowded conditions.

The charge against the mayor was dropped, but McIver’s case is moving toward trial.

Immigrant rights advocates had pressed to not only enshrine the Immigrant Trust Directive into law,but to also add additional protections for immigrants with final orders of removal from the United States; that effort was sidelined in the Senate after a lengthy hearing last week filled with impassioned pleas from immigrants.

During the hearing, Sen. Bob Smith, a Democrat, said the amended bills were a necessary and appropriate response to what he called “atrocities” by immigration agents, including the shooting death of Good in Minneapolis.

“This is the kind of thing that has to be done for us to get America back and to get it working and for people to be respected and not to have masked police forces hurting people,” he said.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By Tracey Tully/ Dakota Santiago

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