Three hours before Gov. Mikie Sherrill’s inauguration, former Gov. Phil Murphy pocket vetoed a pair of bills designed to protect the rights of New Jersey’s immigrants, drawing ire from advocates who had pushed Murphy to sign the lame-duck legislation before his departure.
In a press release, Murphy said he would reject a data-privacy bill because of a “drafting oversight” that would have put the legislation into conflict with federal law. Murphy said the second bill — which would have codified the Immigrant Trust Directive, a policy that generally bars New Jersey police from cooperating with federal agents on civil immigration enforcement — goes beyond the initial policy, potentially opening the Immigrant Trust Directive to a court challenge.
“Re-opening the door to judicial scrutiny of our State’s immigration policies, combined with the Trump Administration’s increasingly targeted actions against states and cities, is a recipe for disaster for our immigrant brothers and sisters and puts them in greater danger,” Murphy said in the release. “And that is not something I am willing to risk when the Directive is secure for the foreseeable future.”
The Legislature cannot override a pocket veto.
The two bills were part of a trio of immigration-related bills that landed on Murphy’s desk last week. Murphy signed the third: the “Safe Communities Act” directs New Jersey’s attorney general to develop policies requiring “sensitive” locations — like schools, hospitals, and courthouses — to remain accessible to all residents.
Immigrant advocates like Nedia Morsy, the executive director of Make the Road New Jersey, said the bills were designed to act like a package. The New Jersey Alliance for Immigrant Justice, a coalition of New Jersey-based organizations pushing immigration rights, said Murphy “walked away from his promise.”
“The three immigrant protection bills were designed to work together—to protect families not only in public spaces, but also from surveillance, data sharing, and coercive entanglement with federal immigration enforcement,” Morsy said in a release. “Our communities asked for protection, and today, they were denied.”
The first bill would have limited the collection of certain data, like immigration status and place of birth. Murphy said the legislation included a “drafting oversight” that wasn’t noticed until after the bill was on his desk; he said the oversight could have cost the state billions in federal funding.
Murphy said he is “hopeful that the Legislature will reintroduce and pass this version of the legislation in the coming weeks so it can be signed into law at the soonest possible opportunity.” If the Legislature does so, it will be up to Sherrill to sign the bill.
Former Attorney General Gurbir Grewal implemented the Immigrant Trust Directive in 2018 in an effort to build trust between the state’s law enforcement agencies and immigrants. A6310, the second bill Murphy pocket vetoed, would have codified the Immigrant Trust Directive. The directive has survived several challenges in court, but Murphy says the bill deviates slightly from the directive, putting the directive at risk.
“I am extremely concerned that signing this bill, which differs from the Immigrant Trust Directive, would open New Jersey up to a new court challenge and renewed judicial scrutiny from judges who may not render the same decision upholding these critical protections,” Murphy said. “Renewed litigation would also put our time-tested Immigrant Trust Directive at risk, endangering hundreds of thousands of immigrants in New Jersey in one fell swoop. I cannot in good conscience allow that to happen.”
Viri Martinez, the deputy director of strategy at the New Jersey Alliance for Immigrant Justice, said Murphy’s decision was defined by fear.
“This decision reflects how Trump’s authoritarian playbook has seeped into our state, paralyzing decisive leadership and allowing fear, rather than values, to dictate who is protected and who is left behind,” Martinez said. “There is no other way to describe Governor Murphy’s refusal to sign all three immigrant protection bills but fear of the Trump administration, elevated above the will of the people.”
