By Philip Sean Curran, Staff Writer
Princeton last week signed a friend of the court brief in support of a California city’s lawsuit challenging a Trump administration executive order stripping federal funds from municipalities that shield illegal immigrants., Mayor Liz Lempert on Monday announced the town had taken that step backing Santa Clara’s legal fight, a move coming on the same day that Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced 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., “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., In his remarks earlier in the 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 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.”, Hopewell Borough Mayor Paul Anzano, whose town is a sanctuary city that gets no federal money, was critical of Sessions., “I believe what he’s doing is probably not permitted by law,” he said Wednesday. “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.”, 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., “I think one of the big issues, in terms of the retainers, it is likely we don’t retain people for … long periods of time,” town administrator Marc D. Dashield said. “If there’s someone here that’s being held here, they’re held for a limited amount of time. They usually go up to the county.”, 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.
