1. United States
2. N.J.
3. Letter

Tonight, on the Governor's orders, New Jersey State Police fired into a crowd of peaceful protesters outside Delaney Hall and drove mounted units into demonstrators — on a roadway the State had already closed to traffic specifically to allow safe protest. There was no traffic to protect and no threat to disperse. The only thing cleared from that street was dissent. Let us be precise about what occurred. The State did not de-escalate; it escalated. It did not shield protesters from federal violence; it took over the federal role and turned state troopers against New Jersey residents to secure the perimeter of an ICE detention center — a facility where people are on hunger strike over spoiled food, denied medical care, and held in conditions our own congressional delegation has called inhumane. The so-called "First Amendment zone" did not protect speech. It corralled it, and then it was attacked. This cannot be reconciled with the law this Governor herself signed. The Immigrant Trust Act was enacted so that New Jersey's police would never serve as an instrument of federal immigration enforcement. Ordering State Police to clear, charge, and fire on the people standing between ICE and its detainees is not a lawful exercise of public safety authority. It is the precise entanglement the Act was written to forbid. Understand what is at stake beyond this one night. An Immigrant Trust Act that is not enforced the moment it is violated — and violated by the very Governor who signed it — is not law. It is a press release. It is political theater staged to placate immigrant communities while the state reserves the right to act against them whenever it becomes convenient. The only thing that makes this legislation real is what you do when honoring it is awkward, when it means investigating your own administration, when it means confronting a Governor of your own party. That is the test in front of you right now, and silence is an answer. We therefore call on the Assembly to act immediately — not to study, not to await the next session, but now: 1. Open an immediate, independent investigation into the deployment and the use of force against peaceful protesters. 2. Censure the Governor and pursue suspension or removal for ordering it. 3. Refer every officer who fired upon or trampled protesters — and the officials who directed them — for prosecution under the Immigrant Trust Act and New Jersey's statutes governing excessive force and official misconduct. And we call on the Governor to close Delaney Hall, withdraw the State Police from ICE's perimeter, and stop using the machinery of this state against the people it is sworn to protect. Do something now, even if it is inconvenient, even if it is uncomfortable. That is the entire point of having drawn the line in the first place.