For a full month now, the streets around the Delaney Hall detention facility in Newark, New Jersey, have belonged to the mob. Federal officers have been savagely bitten and pelted with objects. New Jersey State Police pulled in behind riot lines. Arrests have piled up, and the city has implemented a nightly curfew in the area near the facility. Unfortunately, the willingness of state and local officials to challenge the rioters fluctuates daily as the political winds continue to blow.
Plenty of people are pointing fingers. Almost no one is asking the obvious question: How did New Jersey get here?
The honest answer is that this did not come out of nowhere. For years, New Jersey has built one of the most sweeping sanctuary regimes in the country. The Immigrant Trust Directive told our own police officers, corrections officers, and prosecutors that they could not assist federal immigration authorities. In the spring, Trenton went a step further and codified that directive into law, along with measures restricting information sharing (the exact sort of madness that created the conditions of the 9/11 attacks) and an anti-masking policy (which makes it easier for the mob to doxx law enforcement and their families)…