Alina Habba said she was investigating Gov. Philip D. Murphy and the state’s attorney general over immigration policy. She called the inquiry a “warning for everybody.”
Alina Habba said she was investigating Gov. Philip D. Murphy and the state’s attorney general over immigration policy. She called the inquiry a “warning for everybody.”
The top federal prosecutor in New Jersey said she had directed lawyers in her office to investigate the state’s Democratic governor and attorney general over a statewide policy that limits how much help local police can provide federal immigration officers.
The prosecutor, Alina Habba, called the inquiry a “warning for everybody” in announcing it late Thursday during an appearance on Fox News. She said she was singling out Philip D. Murphy, the governor, and Matthew J. Platkin, the attorney general, for scrutiny.
Anybody who gets “in the way” of President Trump’s efforts to deport migrants will be charged “for obstruction, for concealment,” Ms. Habba, the interim U.S. attorney in New Jersey, warned.
“I will come after them hard,” she said.
The move is part of a broader effort by Mr. Trump, a Republican, to use the Justice Department to punish Democratic state and city officials who refuse to help carry out the administration’s immigration agenda and to quash so-called sanctuary policies.
In January, the Justice Department specifically ordered U.S. attorneys across the country to investigate law enforcement officials who declined to enforce federal policies that seek to limit immigration and the presence of foreign gangs.
Ms. Habba’s comments come as the Trump administration prepares to put New Jersey at the center of its push to deport undocumented immigrants by reopening a 1,000-bed detention center near Newark Liberty International Airport to house those facing deportation.
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