FREEHOLD, N.J. – Monmouth County’s all-Republican freeholder board was set to pass a resolution opposing Sanctuary Statehood on Wednesday evening.
Until they didn’t. The resolution ended up being tabled, a move apparently catalyzed by a posse of pro-illegal immigration protesters who showed up and complained about the resolution.
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It was unclear as to when a reworked resolution will be reintroduced, if at all.
A successful resolution would’ve represented a sharp rebuke to Governor Phil Murphy who resides in Monmouth, a Jersey Shore county which leans Republican in county-wide elections. Murphy and his family live in a riverside Middletown Township estate with a $200,000 annual property tax bill.
[Note: Middletown itself has passed an anti-Sanctuary State resolution.]
New Jersey officially became a Sanctuary State in 2019 when a directive issued by Gurbir Grewal (Governor Murphy’s attorney general) formally took effect and forbade state and local law enforcement from assisting federal immigration authorities including ICE. Another New Jersey county – Sussex, in North Jersey – is presently attempting to put an anti-sanctuary state question on its November ballot despite resistance from AG Grewal.
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