Neary seven years after Phil Murphy’s administration declared New Jersey a sanctuary state via executive action, Save Jerseyans, the legislature is poised to codify sanctuary statehood in state law during the Lame Duck session. The bills were added while you were holiday breaking and watching the historic events in Venezuela.
A6310 will go before the Assembly Judiciary Committee on Monday, January 5th at 1:00 p.m.
The legislation declares that a New Jersey “law enforcement officer is prohibited from engaging in conduct constituting racially-influenced policing. In addition, with certain exceptions, State, county, and municipal law enforcement agencies and officers are prohibited from: 1) stopping, questioning, arresting, searching, or detaining any individual based solely on actual or suspected citizenship or immigration status or actual or suspected violations of federal civil immigration law; or 2) inquiring about an individual’s immigration status, unless it is necessary for an ongoing investigation of an indictable offense by that individual and relevant to the offense under investigation.”
Moreover, “the bill prohibits State, county, and municipal law enforcement agencies and officers from providing certain types of assistance to federal immigration authorities when the sole purpose is to enforce federal civil immigration law.”
The hearing is open to the public in Committee Room 12 on the 4th Floor of the State House Annex, in Trenton. Democrats waffled pre-Election 2025 whether they’d codify the 2018 directive before Phil Murphy left office, but emboldened by the November results, it appears the majority is hoping to make Sanctury Statehood permanent while sparing Governor-elect Mikie Sherrill from having to sign the bill.
And there’s more than one santuary bill on Monday’s agenda:
A6308 “requires the Attorney General to develop model policies on how certain locations interact with federal civil law enforcement to ensure that all people have access to hospitals, public schools, shelters, disaster and emergency response sites, funeral homes, courthouses, and places of worship.”
A6309 provides “government entities and health care facilities are prohibited from requesting or collecting information relating to a person’s immigration status, place of birth, social security number, and individual taxpayer identification number unless it is strictly necessary to assess eligibility for, or to administer, a requested public service, benefit, or program.”
