Amid escalating tensions over aggressive anti-Immigration and Customs Enforcement protests, New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill is urging residents to record federal law enforcement officers operating in their neighborhoods and upload the videos to a state-run portal she said she plans to launch.
Sherrill, a Democrat who took office earlier this month, confirmed her plans Wednesday night during an appearance on Comedy Central's "The Daily Show."
She criticized the recent shooting deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti involving federal law enforcement in Minneapolis and compared ICE to secret police.
"If you see an ICE agent in the street, get your phone out, we want to know," Sherrill said. "They have not been forthcoming.
"They will pick people up, they will not tell us who they are, they will not tell us if they're here legally, they won't check.
"They'll pick up American citizens. They picked up a 5-year-old child. We want documentation, and we are going to make sure we get there."
The Department of Homeland Security said Monday that ICE officers are facing an 8,000% increase in death threats against them and their families, along with a 1,300% increase in assaults.
"Comparing ICE day-in and day-out to the Nazi Gestapo, the Secret Police and slave patrols has consequences," DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a news release.
"The men and women of ICE are fathers and mothers, sons and daughters. They get up every morning to try and make our communities safer.
"Like everyone else, we just want to go home to our families at night. The violence and dehumanization of these men and women who are simply enforcing the law must stop."
Sherrill spokesperson Sean Higgins told the New Jersey Globe that the administration will release further details on the portal "in the coming days."
"Keeping New Jerseyans safe is Gov. Sherrill's top priority and, in the coming days, she and Acting Attorney General [Jennifer] Davenport will announce additional actions to protect New Jerseyans from federal overreach," he said.
Henal Patel, law and policy director at the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice, told the New Jersey Monitor that Sherrill could take more concrete action by committing to sign legislation restricting when local and state police can aid federal immigration agents.
Patel also called for new privacy protections for immigrants. Former Gov. Phil Murphy vetoed those bills in his final hours in office.
"Ensuring that police departments are not cooperating with immigration officers is, I think, one of the most tangible, real steps she could take," Patel said.
"If that step that she's taking is the portal, I hope this is not the ceiling, but very much the ground of what she hopes to do to protect communities in the state."
Sherrill's announcement came as Tom Homan, President Donald Trump's point man for deportations and border security, vowed Thursday in Minneapolis that groups funding and coordinating attacks on ICE agents and operations will be held accountable.
"Justice is coming," he said at a news conference, which aired live on Newsmax.
Growing networks of anti-ICE protesters have been tailing ICE officers, documenting their activities, and alerting other protesters to their whereabouts. Homan was deployed to Minnesota this week to calm tensions after the shooting deaths of Good on Jan. 7 and Pretti on Jan. 24.
Homan also denounced the harsh rhetoric directed at ICE and other immigration law enforcement officers in Minnesota and across the country.
"I said in March that if the rhetoric didn't stop, there was going to be bloodshed, and there has been," Homan said.
"I wish I wasn't right. I don't want to see anybody die, not officers, not members of the community, and not the targets of our operations."
Michael Katz ✉
Michael Katz is a Newsmax reporter with more than 30 years of experience reporting and editing on news, culture, and politics.
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