New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy has rebuked MAGA prosecutor Alina Habba, who threatened to investigate him for allegedly refusing to cooperate with President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.
”We go after criminals hard, period, full stop, regardless of their immigration status,” Murphy, a Democrat, said on the Meidas Touch podcast Friday. “What we don’t do is we don’t go after somebody for jaywalking or when there’s no probable cause of a crime.”
Habba, whom President Donald Trump appointed interim United States attorney for New Jersey in March, told Fox News’ Sean Hannity late Thursday that she was launching an investigation into Murphy and State Attorney General Matthew J. Platkin for reportedly instructing troopers not to work with federal immigration officers.
Habba’s investigation comes after Shore News Network reported that Murphy and Platkin told state police to ignore thousands of newly added immigration warrants listed on a federal database.
Murphy said the state is “guided” by its Immigrant Trust Directive, a 2018 policy that limits cooperation between law enforcement officers and federal immigration officers, such as those working for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). It was enacted to ensure victims and witnesses feel safe to report crimes without fear of deportation.
The governor, who cannot seek a third consecutive term after his current run as governor ends in 2026, told Meidas Touch’s Ben Meiselas the state is “obsessed with bringing justice against criminals,” and said, “If there’s an immigration angle, we’ll work with the feds.”
But, he asserted, “We’re not in the immigration business,” likening it to the idea that “law enforcement doesn’t fight fires—there are firefighters for that.”
Habba served as Trump’s personal attorney and White House counsel before being appointed to her post. She said Thursday that state officers should act on her orders rather than on the directives of state officials and claimed the Immigration Trust Directive “will no longer stand.”
“[U.S. Attorney General] Pam Bondi has made it clear and so has our president that we are to take all criminals, violent criminals, and criminals [sic] out of this country and to completely enforce federal law,” she told Hannity.
“And anybody who does get in that way in the way of what we are doing, which is not political, it is simply against crime, will be charged in the state of New Jersey for obstruction, for concealment,” she said, threatening, “And I will come after hard.”
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