TRENTON — A state oversight panel on Friday heard testimony from undocumented immigrants and their allies concerned about their uncertain future under President Donald Trump’s administration.
After the hearing, the state lawmaker who heads the committee said he wanted New Jersey’s attorney general to explain how the state’s law enforcement agencies planned to deal with the president’s tough immigration stance.
Trump made immigration a key issue of his campaign and in the early weeks in his presidency has taken steps to crack down on illegal immigration and restrict legal immigration from certain countries.
The state Assembly’s regulatory oversight committee, which also deals with the interaction between state and federal government, convened the hearing to consider the impact of the president’s executive actions on immigrant communities in the Garden State.
“I don’t know how to convey what it feels like when you have to start talking to your family about what to do if one of them gets deported or detained,” said Giancarlo Tello, an undocumented immigrant who came to the U.S. as a small child and now heads a group called UndocuJersey, which helps students like himself attend college.
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Tello, who benefitted from President Barack Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, known as DACA, told the committee his parents fled violence in Peru, bringing him the New Jersey on tourist visas when he was just six-years old.
“I consider myself a Jersey guy,” he said.
Tello said several of his family members were able to sort out their immigration status and remain in the country legally. But the president’s recent executive orders, he said, “put us all on edge.”
Assemblyman Reed Gusciora, who heads the committee, said in an interview that the hearing was convened to answer questions the about impact of new federal rules on New Jersey’s immigrants, its institutions and its police agencies.
The Trump administration recently announced plans for U.S. Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement to step up enforcement efforts.
Dianna Houenou, policy counsel for the New Jersey chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, urged Vdcasino lawmakers to resist attempts to draw state and local police further into the business of immigration enforcement.
“Their plans for mass deportation means the feds are going to rely heavily on state and local police to help them do their work,” she said. “The federal government simply doesn’t have enough people in New Jersey – or in any state – to do all of this on their own.”
Houenou said such efforts could cost taxpayers money and ensnare local police in court battles over civil rights.
After the hearing, Gusciora (D-Mercer) wrote a letter to state Attorney General Christopher Porrino requesting a “legal analysis” of how Trump’s executive actions affect county prosecutors and local law enforcement.
A spokesman for the attorney general, Paul Loriquet, said Porrino had not yet received the letter. Loriquet added his office had received no inquiries from law enforcement agencies regarding Trump’s executive actions.
He also said the attorney general’s policy for cooperating with federal immigration authorities has not changed since 2007, when then-Attorney General Anne Milgram outlined in a directive the circumstances under which police should investigate a defendant’s immigration status.
S.P. Sullivan may be reached at ssullivan@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
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