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Original article publisged Saturday morning is below:
Mayor Ras Baraka of Newark said Friday that a group representing the mayors of more than 30 communities -- including the state’s largest cities -- opposes a controversial series of raids planned for Sunday morning targeting undocumented immigrants.
“We are appalled by the heavy-handed tactics being used by President Trump and Immigration and Customs Enforcement in their plan for pre-dawn raids on Sunday, June 23, in cities across the nation,” Baraka said on behalf of the New Jersey Urban Mayor’s Association.
Baraka said the association will hold a press conference Monday morning in Newark to denounce the raids.
Ahead of that conference, it was unclear how many mayors from the other 31 communities represented by the group also oppose the raids, although at least some of those mayors have previously spoken out against recent heightened ICE enforcement.
Hoboken's Mayor Ravi Bhalla publicly stated police in that city would not cooperate in the roundup. Hoboken belongs to the group.
Some of the other member communities include Bayonne, Bloomfield, East Orange, Elizabeth, Hillside, Irvington, Jersey City, Kearny, Linden, North Bergen, Orange, Passaic, Paterson, Plainfield, and Roselle.
ICE said it is targeting more than 2,000 undocumented immigrant family members for arrest in early morning raids.
CNN reported that in 2018, the federal Executive Office for Immigration Review, which oversees the nation's immigration courts, had begun tracking family cases filed by the Department of Homeland Security in 10 immigration court locations: Atlanta, Baltimore, Chicago, Denver, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, New Orleans, New York and San Francisco.
The families targeted in the sweep have members who in February received final deportation orders from the courts. Those people were asked to report to ICE by March but many failed to do so, an ICE official told CNN.
ICE officials had previously expressed concerns about the raids, which have been in the works for months, over the possibility of splitting up families. ICE officials told CNN Friday that undocumented immigrants with children who are U.S. citizens will be fitted with ankle bracelets.
The move comes as Trump continues to focus on stemming illegal immigration to the United States, a signature issue for him since he launched his first presidential campaign in 2015.
Baraka’s full statement appears below:
“We reject President Trump’s attack on undocumented families across the United States. This outrageous tearing of families apart and causing fear in communities across America is clearly a political stunt, coming on the heels of Trump’s kick-off of his re-election campaign. We stand with our undocumented immigrant communities and are committed to protecting them, regardless of the actions of President Trump and his administration. We are appalled by the heavy-handed tactics being used by President Trump and Immigration and Customs Enforcement in their plan for pre-dawn raids on Sunday, June 23, in cities across the nation.
“These measures are racist, bigoted, and inhumane. We have already seen the horrific treatment given to undocumented immigrants in detention centers, where many detainees sleep on cold concrete floors, are denied proper food, beds, and toilets, where children are separated from their families, and adults are severely mistreated for simply trying to seek a better life.”
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