On Friday, the United States filed a brief supporting Cape May County and Ocean County’s legal challenges to the Immigrant Trust Directive. In response, Attorney General Grewal issued the following statement.

Statement by Attorney General Grewal on Department of Justice action challenging the Immigrant Trust Directive:

“I am deeply disappointed that the Trump Administration, the Department of Justice, and the U.S. Attorney’s Office have suddenly chosen to challenge New Jersey’s Immigrant Trust Directive in court over a year after it was issued. At a time when we need to be building bridges with our immigrant communities, the federal government is working to push them further into the shadows.

The Immigrant Trust Directive serves an important role in New Jersey: to ensure that all residents, including our diverse immigrant communities, feel safe interacting with state and local police. That helps us protect public safety by ensuring that victims and witnesses come forward and report crimes to law enforcement without fear of deportation.

Nothing about today’s lawsuit changes that. The federal government has every right to keep doing its job, but it has no right to stop our law enforcement officers from doing ours. The federal government’s efforts to coerce states into implementing its immigration agenda have failed repeatedly in the past, and we’ll respond to their latest efforts in court at the appropriate time.”