Judge blocks New Jersey ‘sanctuary’ law banning ICE migrant detention in win for contractor, Biden admin
Fox News
A federal judge ruled New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy's law blocking migrant detention contracts is unconstitutional, siding with the Biden administration.
At the time of the bill’s passage, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the division of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) responsible for detaining individuals for civil immigration violations was using four detention facilities in New Jersey, but as the legislation became law, three of those four facilities stopped housing detainees on ICE’s behalf. Now, just one remains – the Elizabeth Detention Center (EDC). Its private operator CoreCivic, Inc.’s federal contract was set to expire on Aug. 31, and afterward, the New Jersey law would have prevented the private contractor from renewing it. Danielle Wallace is a reporter for Fox News Digital covering politics, crime, police and more. Story tips can be sent to danielle.wallace@fox.com and on Twitter: @danimwallace.
In a Tuesday ruling, U.S. District Court Judge Robert Kirsch sided with CoreCivic’s lawsuit filed earlier this year, ruling the legislation unconstitutional.
"A state law that wholesale deprives the federal government of its chosen method of detaining individuals for violating federal law cannot survive Supremacy Clause scrutiny," the judge wrote. "[The law] would impose on the United States an intolerable choice between either releasing federal detainees or carrying out detention in an entirely novel way."