A newly surfaced internal email sent to New Jersey State Police personnel has ignited a political firestorm, revealing that officers were directed not to comply with federal immigration arrest warrants. The March 24 message, which surfaced through Republican gubernatorial candidate Jack Ciattarelli, has renewed criticism of New Jersey’s “sanctuary” policies.
The email, authored by New Jersey State Police Superintendent Col. Patrick Callahan, states that officers are not legally permitted to act on “Outstanding Administrative Warrants of Removal from the United States.” This guidance follows the addition of 27,000 such warrants to the National Crime Information Center.
“Taking law enforcement action by arresting a subject based solely on an ‘Outstanding Administrative Warrant’ would violate the Attorney General’s Immigration Trust Directive,” the email reads. It was distributed to NJSP personnel, operational dispatch units, and public safety telecommunicators. It also instructed that staff must not contact Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) through the provided federal contact number.
Ciattarelli, who is running to replace outgoing Democratic Governor Phil Murphy in November, called attention to the email as evidence of what he described as dangerous state policies that undermine law enforcement.
“The fact that my campaign received this email is evidence that brave and courageous law enforcement officers throughout New Jersey are angry about being handcuffed by liberal Democrat policies in Trenton, making our communities less safe,” Ciattarelli said in a statement.
“The blame goes to Governor Murphy, Attorney General Platkin, and the Democrat legislature for mandating absurd policies like the Immigrant Trust Directive,” Ciattarelli added. He pledged that if elected, he would reverse these policies: “We will be partners with the Trump Administration in fixing our immigration system and restore law and order.”
The Immigrant Trust Directive, first issued by the Attorney General’s Office under the Murphy administration, limits how state and local law enforcement can interact with federal immigration authorities. It explicitly prevents arrests based solely on civil immigration violations and prohibits assistance when the sole purpose is the enforcement of civil immigration law, according to Fox News.
In response to the growing controversy, Attorney General Matt Platkin defended the policy, emphasizing its public safety benefits. “Our number one priority is keeping New Jerseyans safe,” Platkin told Fox News Digital. “The Immigrant Trust Directive ensures that New Jersey police officers spend their time tackling pressing public safety issues like violent crime, gun violence, and drug trafficking, while also ensuring that victims of crime and witnesses can safely come forward to police and report crime regardless of their immigration status.”
“Under the Immigrant Trust Directive, state and local law enforcement have and will continue to work with federal authorities to remove violent criminals from this country,” he added. “Plain and simple, there is no ‘sanctuary’ for criminals in New Jersey.”
Platkin also noted that the directive was created with the cooperation of leading law enforcement organizations across the state, including the County Prosecutors Association of New Jersey and the New Jersey Association of Chiefs of Police.
TRAITORS are being discovered every minute.
The REPUBLIC cannot survive under the left misnaming argumentatively it a ” democracy”. A democracy leads to a tyranny. One only has to study history
PLEASE, if you are a Conservative, a Republican, NEVER utter the word “democracy” to designate the political aspect of the USA!
CONSTITUTIONAL REPUBLIC is under a totally different set of rules, and the left is purposefully destroying the meaning of what this country really is. The leftists want to destroy the laws and create their own fiefdom.
Tell them to go where they belong:HELL!
They are talking out of both sides of their mouth. The police are not the venue to determine if someone is dangerous. It is called obstruction of justice if they refuse.
The people hopefully see their jobs at stake under this backdoor liberal approach to cheap labor replacement at the expense of the national debt, which has reached the tipping point of collapse. Their policies of forty years continue to erode the strength our nation was built on, and those who continue to follow them have been brainwashed by a deceitful education system with babysitting, downdumbing, and entertainment as its central objectives.
Hopefully NJ smartens up and votes these LIBRAL law breakers out of office. And yes we are a Constitutional Republic, even says so in the Constitution, something I don’t believe and Democrat has ever read nor any illegal alien.