6 events in Passaic County with a date

In NJ, Project 2025 playbook already rolling out

By: Ricardo Kaulessare
NorthJersey.com
USA Today Network - New Jersey

..... "i know nothing about Project 2025," Donald Trump posted about the conservative playbook on his social platform, Truth Social, in July. [2024]
..... "I have no idea who is behind it," his post said. "I disagree with some of the things they're saying and some of the things they're saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal. Anythign they do I wish them luck."
..... Project 2025 is a right-wing initiative put together by the Heritage Foundation, a Washington, D.C.-based conservative think tank, that looks to medically reshape the federal government under the next Republican presidency, which is now in place with Trump serving his second term in office.
..... Trump who makes his home in New Jersey at the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminister for several months during the year, tried to distance himself from Project 2025 during his presidential campaign last year. [2024] evidence and analyses of Project 2025 concluded that Trump was lying.
..... Since his second term started in January, [2025] Trump has brought Project 2025 contributors into his administration and has signed execute orders and implemented policies that originated from recommendations in the document. USA Today reported that at least 31 op the project's 28 creators worked in the previous Trump administration. CNN.com reported that at least 140 people who worked for Trump contributed to Project 2025.
.... Russell Vought, one of the main authors of the 922-page document, is the director of the United Stat4es Office of Management and Budget. tom Homan, listed as a contributor, is Trump's "border czar," the person responsible for carrying out and overseeing deportations of immigrants.
..... One of the areas featured in Project 2025 is immigration, in the 36-page chapter on the Department of Homeland Security authored by New Jersey native Ken Cuccinelli, who served in the first Trump administration as acting director of U.S. citizenship and Immigration Services form 2019 to 2021 and around the same time as acting deputy secretary of the Department of Homeland Security.
..... In it, he recommended that various anti-immigration measures be carried out in the next presidency to reform the immigration system. Some of those measures have been implemented in the past month, [02/2025] reported the website Project 2025 Tracker:
* authorize sate and local law enforcement to participate in immigration actions.
* Increase use of civil search warrants for workplace raids.
* ICE (Immigrant and Customs Enforcement) should be required to "take custody of all aliens with records for felonies ... DUIs ... and any other crime that is considered a national security or public safety threat."
* Raise the standard for a credible fear of persecution for asylum.
* Reinstate Rea min in Mexico.
..... NorthJersey.com spoke to some experts about how these measures will affect various immigrate communities in the Garden State.
..... Amol Sinha, executive director of the ACLU of New Jersey, said the Trump administration will continue to take cues from Project 2025 when it comes to going after immigrants in the state. he pointed out Trump's often-stated goal of mass deportation as the impetus for these actions.
..... "These are things that impact immigrant communities across the country, but especially in New Jersey, where we have one of the most diverse states and one of the largest population o immigrants in the country," Sinha said. "So we are very concerned about the ways New Jerseyans will be impacted by the federal government.

Immigration and Project 2025

..... The website Project 2025 Tracker has been keeping tabs on the objectives in the document that have shown up in the Trump administration policies. The tracker shows that as of February 26, [2025] five of the 22 immigration objectives for action by the Homeland Security Department has already been achieved.
..... One of these objectives has come to fruition in New Jersey in the past few weeks: ICE raids in workplaces across the state.
..... Last Tuesday, [02/25/2025] Celal and Emine Emanet, a couple from Turkey and owners of Jersey Kabab, a popular family-owed Mediterranean restaurant in Haddon Township in south Jersey, were picked up by ICE officers. The courier-Post reported that the pair have an open case on their legal status with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services since 2016 as they wait for their green cards. Emine Emanet was released from custody, but Celal Emanet remained detained.
..... A raid in Newark in January [2025] provoked outrage when a U.S. military veteran was one of the people arrested even after showing his military ID.
..... Meanwhile, Cape May county Sheriff Robert Nolan, who also serves as the president of the New Jersey Sheriffs Association, said in an interview last month [02/2025] with NJ spotlight News that he want to work with ICE agents as local and state law enforcement did before the state in 2018 passed the Immigration Trust Directive.
..... Nolan said hat although he is not :one of those people that thinks every single immigrate needs to be put on a plane and sent back home," he believes cooperation is necessary to capture immigrants who could casual harm to residents.
..... Sinha said the state can protect immigrants with no criminal records from being swept up in an ICE raid and subject to other immigrant actions that stem from Project 2025 by upholding the Immigrant Trust Directive. The directive, issued in 2018 by then-state Attorney General Gurbir Grewal, limits the cooperation of state and local police departments with ICE agents as a way to ensure that immigrate victims and witnesses feel safe reporting crimes to local police without fear of deportation.
..... Sinha also advocated for passage of the state Immigration Trust Act, which would codify the directive.
..... The legislation, introduced in September [2024] by Bergen County Democrat Gordon Johnson and Ellen Park, is seen by supporters as important in ensuring that immigrants trust local law enforcement. some of those supporters in mid-February [2025] visited the offices of lawmakers in all 40 legislative districts and implored them to pass the bill before the current legislative session ends in June. [2025]
..... "If we have a situation where immigrant community members are fearful of talking to law enforcement or going to a state agency because they fear either they or their family members will be deported, then that harms all of us," Sinha said. "That means that people won't speak out when they are victims of crimes. They won't serve as witnesses to crimes. They will not seek out the health care that they need. they will not seek out the services that the state can provide them."
..... However, there is uncertainty that the Immigrant Trust Act will be passed, if Governor Phil Murphy's recent comments are any indication. during a NorthJersey.com and USA Today Network - New Jersey additional board meetings in February, [2025] the governor said he and not spoken with legislature leadership about the legislation but through the original guidelines are "sturdy" and "have worked,: and he's not inclined to do a whole lot of messing" with them while still reaming "open-minded:about improving them.

Chose in communities

..... Kaitlin Sidorsky, an associate professor of political science and public policy at Ramapo College, said Project 2025-fueled immigration actions create uncertainty and chaos affecting communities in New Jersey and nationwide.
..... "Project 2025 and the Republican Party typically use the term 'illegal immigrants.' But obviously, there have been many stories of legal immigrates getting caught up as well or people who have gotten specific protections, like people from Haiti or Venezuela, that have been rescinded," Sidorsky said. "The question is what happens to those people now."
..... Listed on the Project 2025 Tracker as an "in progress" objective is the real of Temporary Protected Status designations. This is a designation given to people staying in the U.S. for a certain period of time because they are unable to return safely to their heme countries due to dangerous conditions there. The Trump administration ended TPS protections in February [2025] for Venezuelans, who received it after a designation in 2023 under former President Joe Biden. The new administration also set the expiration date of TPS protections for Haitians for August 3. [2025] According to U.S. census data, New Jersey is home to 69,000 Haitians and 15,500 Venezuelans/
..... NorthJersey.com also reached out for comment to the Trump administration for this story at three different email addresses connected to Trump, along with a message posted on the White House web page, but did not receive a response. Also contacted was Ken Cuccinelli, with calls to two different phone numbers listed Online for him, but those attempts were unsuccessful.

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