On November 29, 2018, then-Attorney General of the State of New Jersey Gurbir Grewal issued Attorney General Law Enforcement Directive No. 2018-6, the Immigrant Trust Directive (Directive).1 The Directive, which first became effective on March 15, 2019, limits certain voluntary assistance that local law enforcement agencies (LEA) can provide to federal agencies tasked with enforcing U.S. immigration law. It contends that the federal government’s increased reliance on state and local agencies to enforce immigration law challenges law enforcement officers’ efforts to build trust with immigrant communities.

CILPJ obtained two years of funding (2020-21 and 2021-22) from the Rutgers University Pratt Fund to conduct an extensive review of publicly disclosed records obtained from 416 law enforcement agencies throughout the state (68% of all New Jersey law enforcement agencies). The aim of the project was to understand the progress that LEAs have made in implementing the Directive and to identify areas for needed improvement, in addition to assessing public records access and transparency in law enforcement agencies.

The report identifies that implementation of the Directive has led to a plateauing of the rates of ICE removals assisted by jails and carceral facilities in New Jersey beginning in 2019 after the Directive was implemented. Removals under the Secure Communities program, a program wherein jails hold and transfer custody of inmates to ICE, rose 45.7% from 2016 to 2017 (409 to 596 removals), 70.3% from 2017 to 2018 (to 1015) before dropping 29% (to 711) in 2019 in the year in which the Directive became operational.

The report also found that there has been only partial implementation of the Directive and that there is still a great deal to be done to achieve full implementation. The report found that only 53% of agencies updated their agency policies to be compliant with the Directive; only 28% of the agencies (72) complied with the Directive’s requirements to publicize their procedures for assisting non-citizen victims of certain crimes in filing for “U or T visas” when they come forward and cooperate with law enforcement to solve crimes; and only 26% (108) provide non-citizen detainees in jails the required consent and notification forms when ICE wants to interview them, obtain information about them, or arrest them.

“Cultivating Immigrant Trust in the Garden State” also issues a set of over twenty recommendations to ensure proper implementation of the Directive and greater access to the law enforcement agency public records by the New Jersey legislature, Governor Phil Murphy, and Acting Attorney General Matthew J. Platkin. The report calls for increased oversight of law enforcement implementation of the Directive and revisions to the Directive itself to strengthen its measures, including stopping information sharing and custody transfers with immigration authorities. These recommendations would ensure full compliance with the law and build on immigrant protection from immigration detentions and deportations.

A copy of the report can be found here.