Immigrant Protection Bills Pass and May Become Law

By Marty Rothfelder

The Faith Action Immigration Justice Task Force has been active for months in collation with other groups on legislation designed to provide protections for immigrants from data on their immigration status being unnecessarily required, disclosed, or shared and other related protections.  At the end of December, Assembly Speaker Coughlin offered that instead of passing the Immigration Trust Act (ITA) itself, he offered to work to pass the substance of the ITA bill in three new bills.

A6308/ S5036 Safe Communities- requires policies at public schools, healthcare facilities, domestic violence shelters, food pantries, libraries, courthouses, places of worship and other places to prohibit sensitive locations from assisting or participating in federal civil law enforcement.

A6309/S5037 Privacy Protection Act- Prohibits government entities and health care facilities from requesting or collecting information relating to a person’s immigration status, place of birth, Social Security number, and taxpayer identification number  unless it is strictly necessary to assess eligibility for, or to administer, a requested public service, benefit or program. (Note: UU Faith Action has been informed that hospitals and health care centers will probably be excluded from this bill before it is signed by the governor).

A6310/S5038 Strengthening Trust Between Law Enforcement and Immigrant Communities- codifies the current immigration protections in an Attorney General’s Directive into statutory law.
More detailed information on the bill contents is available on the NJ Legislature website.

After a long recess, the Senate passed the bills as well. The next step would be for them to be signed by the Governor. The Immigration Task Force asks that you consider contacting the governor’s office by phone or e-mail to ask him to sign these bills.