A New Jersey Republican assemblyman has introduced a bill that would tear up the state's limits on local police working with federal immigration agents — reopening the door to ICE's 287(g) deputisation programme in every town in the state and creating a state grant fund to pay departments that sign up. For New Jersey's large immigrant communities, including the Punjabi families and businesses concentrated around Edison, Iselin and Jersey City, the bill A-5725 is the latest move in a fight over the Immigrant Trust rules that has run since 2018.

Source: Jersey Vindicator

What the bill would do

The bill, introduced on Thursday, October 29 by Assemblyman Gregory Myhre, an Ocean County Republican, would repeal a key section of the law signed by Governor Mikie Sherrill in March 2026 that wrote the Immigrant Trust Directive into state statute. That section generally bars local, county and state police from engaging in racial profiling, from asking residents about their immigration status, and from stopping, questioning, arresting, searching or detaining people based solely on that status.

Repealing it would also lift the prohibition on police departments entering into 287(g) agreements with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Under 287(g), local officers perform certain immigration-enforcement duties under ICE's direction and oversight, according to ICE. Myhre put the effect plainly: "Essentially, any law enforcement agency within the state would be free to cooperate with federal immigration authorities," he told the Jersey Vindicator.

A state grant fund for ICE partnerships

The bill goes further than repeal. According to a draft provided by Myhre's office, it would establish a state-run grant programme to support law-enforcement agencies entering into, renewing or expanding agreements with ICE. The programme would be administered by the state Department of Law and Public Safety, which would have to report annually to the governor and the Legislature on whether it should continue or expand. The draft does not specify a funding amount, leaving future appropriations to the Legislature.

The background: from Grewal's directive to Sherrill's law

New Jersey's restrictions began in 2018, when Attorney General Gurbir Grewal issued the Immigrant Trust Directive. Its stated premise, in the directive's own words, was that "to build trust, we must draw a clear distinction between state, county, and local law enforcement, who are responsible for enforcing state criminal law, and federal immigration authorities, including ICE, who enforce federal civil immigration law." The directive was designed so that victims and witnesses would report crimes without fear of deportation, according to the Attorney General's office, and it survived a federal court challenge during the first Trump administration.

Source: Bolts Magazine

In March 2026, Governor Sherrill signed legislation codifying the directive — making New Jersey the 10th state with a law barring local ICE contracts — alongside a Privacy Protection Act limiting when agencies can collect or share immigration-status information, and a law requiring ICE agents to show their faces and provide identification before making an arrest. Myhre's bill would repeal the section containing the police-cooperation restrictions, rather than the entire law. An identical bill has been introduced in the state Senate, and earlier repeal bills from Myhre (A5176) and senators (S4518) are already on the Legislature's record.

Source: New Jersey Legislature

The national picture: 287(g) is expanding fast

The bill lands as the 287(g) programme grows at its fastest pace ever under the second Trump administration, which revived the Task Force Model in 2025 — allowing deputised officers to carry out immigration enforcement during routine policing, including traffic stops, rather than only on people already in local custody. More than 1,850 state and local agencies had joined the Task Force Model as of October 1, according to an October 28 analysis cited by the National Immigration Forum, and FWD.us estimates more than 29,000 officers in 30 states are now deputised — more than twice ICE's own deportation-officer workforce. Arrests involving 287(g) officers rose from just over 1,000 in August 2025 to more than 6,600 in July 2026.

Source: National Immigration Forum, Policy Bulletin, Oct. 30, 2026

What advocates say

Immigrant advocates warn the bill would reverse the trust the 2018 directive was built to create and would further frighten immigrant communities. Priscila D. Abraham, supervising attorney with the American Friends Service Committee's social justice programme, echoed those concerns in response to the bill. Supporters of repeal, including the sponsor, argue the current statute hinders federal authority and undermines local policing discretion — the position stated in the earlier repeal bills' official statements.

Why it matters in Edison, Jersey City and for truckers

Middlesex and Hudson counties are home to one of the largest South Asian communities in the United States — Edison and Iselin's Oak Tree Road corridor alone is a centre of Punjabi and Indian business life, and Jersey City has a large Punjabi population. If 287(g) returned to New Jersey, routine traffic stops on the New Jersey Turnpike, I-95, Route 1 and the Garden State Parkway — corridors Punjabi truckers and delivery drivers use daily — could include immigration-status enforcement by local officers, which the current law forbids. That is the practical stake behind a bill that, on paper, is about which level of government polices immigration.

What happens next

A-5725 now sits with the Assembly, where it would need committee action before any floor vote, and its Senate companion faces the same path. Governor Sherrill, who signed the restrictions into law in March, would have to sign any repeal for it to take effect. Awaaz Punjab will follow the bill's committee progress and any response from the Governor's office and the Attorney General.