We’ve seen far too many of these stories, but this one out of New Jersey comes with a twist. The Attorney General for the Garden State, Gurbir Grewal, has issued marching orders to the Sheriff’s Departments in both Cape May and Monmouth counties, telling them that they can no longer take part in voluntary law enforcement programs allowing them to cooperate with ICE in certain immigration matters. He arrived at this decision despite specific, valid requests from the Sheriffs that they be exempted from the new rules. (CBS New York)

New Jersey’s attorney general is ordering two counties to end their cooperation agreements with federal immigration authorities.
State Attorney General Gurbir Grewal says the Immigrant Trust Directive issued last year limits law enforcement’s cooperation with ICE.

But sheriff’s departments in Cape May and Monmouth counties still maintain agreements to perform some immigration functions.

The attorney general says those agreements prevent victims from reporting crimes.

None of this is happening in a vacuum. The AG has been going after these counties all year to demonstrate his woke credentials and battle the evil that is ICE. But when the Sheriffs made their request to be exempted last month, they cited very valid reasons. For one example, Monmouth County picked up an illegal alien in January who we definitely didn’t want back out on the streets. Check out the rap sheet on this guy. (USA Today)

When a Guatemalan national was charged with aggravated assault with a handgun, terroristic threats and possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose in January, a Monmouth County corrections officer ran the person’s name in a federal database and discovered that the inmate had entered the United States on a visitor’s visa and never left.

A corrections officer placed an immigration hold on the inmate that flagged federal immigration authorities.

In addition to that guy, they arrested another illegal alien in March on charges of burglary, harassment and domestic violence. He’d been arrested at the border with his mother three years earlier. He too was turned over to ICE and processed.

In other words, we’re not talking about a program where the Sheriff’s deputies are rounding up random illegal aliens at the local grocery store. These are dangerous criminals who are already in custody on serious charges. And the State Attorney General wants to forbid the Sheriffs from notifying or holding them for ICE.

His excuse for this, as explained in his statement last week, is that he is “taking another step forward here in New Jersey to build trust, to fight crime and to make this state safe for all of our residents.” That quote about the state being “safe for all of our residents” is standard code in woke circles, meaning “safe for illegal aliens.” But is that guy from Guatemala with the gun charges and domestic violence rap really the person you’re trying to keep the state safe for? Shouldn’t you really be focusing more on keeping everyone else safe from him?

This suicidal behavior in the blue “sanctuary” states should be driving residents to either start voting some new people into office or get to packing their stuff and moving. These policies may look good on the AG’s resume when he’s running in the primary for higher office, but he’s not doing a thing to keep the legal citizens under his protection safe. Also, immigration law is precisely what it says… the law. Isn’t an Attorney General supposed to be upholding all the laws by definition?