When Gov. Mikie Sherrill signed a trio of immigration-related bills in Newark in March, one of the bills was aimed at barring U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents from covering their faces.
“We’re not going to tolerate masked, roving militias pretending to be well-trained law enforcement agents,” Sherrill, a Democrat, said then.
Yet scenes over the past 10 days of anti-ICE protesters clashing with federal agents outside migrant jail Delaney Hall have made clear the new law is not stopping ICE officers from masking.
“I don’t think they’re focused on due process,” Sherrill said at a press conference Sunday. “Certainly, they’re already breaking the law here in New Jersey by wearing masks everywhere. We’re in court to fight that right now.”
The Trump administration sued New Jersey in federal court in April over the new law, called the Law Enforcement Officer Protection Act (it bars all law enforcement from masking, not just ICE agents). Though a judge has yet to rule in the matter, Lauren Bis, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, said the agency will not obey New Jersey’s “unconstitutional attempt to regulate law enforcement officers.”
“ICE officers wear face coverings for one reason: to protect themselves and their families from real-world threats including agitators. The danger is not hypothetical,” she said. “Today, our ICE law enforcement officers face a more than 1,300% increase in assaults, 3,300% increase in vehicular attacks, and an 8,000% increase in death threats against them.”
The nightly conflict between ICE agents and protesters, which started when detainees at Delaney Hall said they were launching a hunger strike to protest conditions inside, shifted in recent days when New Jersey State Police took over crowd control outside the Newark detention center and Newark city officials implemented a nightly curfew in a push to discourage demonstrators.
On Monday, Brooklyn man Nicholas Matthew Scelfo appeared before a federal judge in Newark on charges that he threatened to murder a federal agent during a Delaney Hall protest last week. Video from that night shows a man federal prosecutors identify as Scelfo screaming, “I’ll kill your whole f***ing family” at an officer.
“I have your face, mother***er! You’re dead! Dead!” the man yells in the video.
Federal authorities have used that episode to defend ICE agents for wanting to cover their faces during operations.
Scelfo faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted.
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