By Philip Sean Curran, Staff Writer
Weeks after Hopewell Borough designated itself as a sanctuary city, one local official is questioning whether the threat of cuts to federal law enforcement funds for like-minded municipalities was right or legal., “I believe what [Attorney General Jeff Sessions] doing is probably not permitted by law,” Mayor Paul Anzano said last week., Anzano’s stance came shortly after Sessions leveled a threat that states and local jurisdictions will not get federal Department of Justice grants if they try to block cooperation with federal immigration authorities. The move is seen as the government’s way to push back against sanctuary cities., The Hopewell Borough Council voted in favor of designating the municipality as a sanctuary city last month, though the move required a tie-breaking vote by Anzano., During his remarks last week, Sessions highlighted some serious crimes committed by illegal immigrants, including a recent example of a man released from jail, despite having an immigration detainer, who then went on to murder someone., “I strongly urge our nation’s states and cities and counties to consider carefully the harm they are doing to their citizens by refusing to enforce our immigration laws and to rethink these policies,” Sessions said last Monday. “Such policies make their cities and states less safe — public safety, as well as national security are at stake — and put them at risk of losing federal dollars.”, Though numerous governing bodies throughout the country are left wondering where such a reduction in federal funding could be made up in their budgets, some smaller municipalities like Hopewell Borough do not receive federal funding., Regardless, the borough mayor said he wondered how Sessions could make such an assertion in the first place., “I don’t see how someone who’s honestly concerned about law enforcement would do something along those lines, to put residents at greater risk, by withholding funding,” Anzano said., As a result of the Trump Administration’s rhetoric and proposed immigration policies, sanctuary cities throughout the country have been left wondering what recourse they have., Last month, Princeton signed a friend of the court brief in support of a California city’s lawsuit challenging the executive order., Princeton Mayor Liz Lempert announced last week the town was backing Santa Clara’s legal fight on the same day that Sessions made his announcement., “Signing onto this is, in part, to show solidarity with other communities who are being impacted, I think more so than out of an immediate concern for how it might impact Princeton directly,” Mayor Lempert said., But officials of the town, home to large numbers of people living in the country illegally, have said they expected to be on the opposite of the immigration debate with the Trump administration., Though Princeton does not use the term sanctuary city officially, the town limits cooperation between police and immigration officials. Princeton Police do not honor civil detainers that Immigration and Customs Enforcement puts on illegal immigrants, for instance. The department must notify immigration authorities, however, if they arrest an illegal immigrant charged with a serious offense or drunken driving, based on a state attorney general’s directive from 2007., The town has said it is important to build trust with the local immigrant community., “It’s important for local jurisdictions to build trust between local law enforcement and the communities they serve in order for local law enforcement to be effective,” Mayor Lempert said. “And in order to protect the public safety, our police need to maintain those relationships and maintain that trust that they’ve worked so hard to build.”, The town gets some federal money, funneled through the state and the county, like for road work. Officials did not have a dollar amount available., After Sessions’s comments, gubernatorial candidate Assemblyman John Wisniewski (D-19) touted a bill that would make New Jersey a sanctuary state.
