Immigration Justice

Immigration Justice Task Force Chairs: 
Ted Fetter (UU Congregation of Princeton)
Email: immigration@uufaithaction.org

At the annual Fall Issues Conference in October 2021 discussion was started on what should be the IJTF priorities for 2022. By December of 2021 the following priorities were set for the Task Force:

1. Relief for Refugees Given the rapidly increasing number of refugees in the world, the IJTF expanded its focus beyond immigration work to include refugee relief. The Afghan refugees fleeing Afghanistan when the US pulled its troops prompted this priority. The work on this priority involves both advocating for public policies in New Jersey that assist refugees and providing assistance to refugees where we can and assist or coordinate with Congregations of many faiths and others providing such assistance. Since the Fall conference, in addition to supporting Afghan refugees, a dire need arose to support the Ukrainian refugees fleeing the war in their country. The IJTF reached out to Interfaith-RISE of Highland Park New Jersey. Interfaith-RISE is a well-established refugee and immigrant support organization that works with the US State Department to provide refugees who come to New Jersey with housing and “getting settled “support. The IJTF met with the volunteer coordinator of Interfaith-RISE to establish a connection with them. IJTF will monitor the work of Interfaith-RISE and will inform the UU congregations of the type of support needed. A poll of the UU Congregations of New Jersey found that many are working at their local area usually with another agency such as Catholic Charities. Legislatively, the task force will advocate for public policy that will provide refugees a full free life in New Jersey through freedom from detention and oppressive or unnecessary forms of monitoring, and through access to education, housing, health care, and other basic necessities.
2. The Values Act. The biggest current legislative effort is for the Values Act (S512/A1986). This bill would codify the Immigration Trust Directive of three years ago, which limits how much information our own law enforcement agencies share with ICE or other federal agencies. The Values Act also accomplishes a number of other changes that would improve the ability of undocumented persons to interact with state and local government, in effect to live their lives with much less fear that they will become a target for deportation. State and local governments would not collect information on immigration status except when federal law requires it. And in one more element, the bill removes the word “alien” from existing state statutes and replaces it with words such as “non-citizen,” using much less degrading terms. Your Immigration Justice task force is helping line up co-sponsors and will ask for you to contact legislators when the bill comes before the Legislature.
3. Support for Legal Assistance to those threatened with deportation. The task force shall continue its support of using NJ state funds to provide legal assistance to detainees and others threatened with deportation.
4. Assist undocumented persons to expunge records from minor marijuana offenses. Under the legalization of marijuana in New Jersey, many persons have been able to expunge prior records of marijuana-related offenses, but that ability does not apply to undocumented persons. There is no reason for this continued harassment.
5. Urge ICE to “release, not transfer” persons held in NJ facilities for immigration offenses. All three counties who had previously entered into contacts with ICE to house federal detainees in their local jails have ended those agreements. Currently only one private detention center operates in New Jersey, and its contract cannot be renewed. So there are fewer detainees being held in our state. Nevertheless, ICE has moved many persons from New Jersey locations to detention centers in other states. We believe the need to hold them in detention is very low, and they should be released rather than transferred.

In addition to our current priorities the task force continues to work on driver license implantation for undocumented immigrants In May 2023, the federal government will require all those who use commercial flights to present enhanced identification in order to board. Since the spring of 2021, undocumented persons in New Jersey have been able to secure driver’s licenses, thus enabling them to drive legally in our state. Our task force was part of a large coalition that worked for years to get that done, and New Jersey is among about 13 states that permit the undocumented to drive, get automobile insurance, and travel safely. Knowing of the upcoming requirement for commercial flight, the new legislation established two kinds of licenses – so-called REAL ID and standard – and the undocumented are able to secure only the standard license. We are now seeing announcements that all of us will need the enhanced licenses soon. But that is not true, since there are other forms of federal identification that will continue to let persons fly – passports, military identification, and so forth. The Immigration Justice Task Force encourages all citizens to renew their driver’s licenses as a standard license if they have alternative federal ID such as a passport. Doing so is important to avoid any stigma about showing a standard license while driving.

We are proudly part of New Jersey Alliance for Immigrant Justice: www.njimmigrantjustice.org