No Sanctuary for New Brunswick, NJ

By Amy Barenboim on March 5, 2017

In the wake of President Trump’s immigration policy, undocumented citizens are now under increased threat of deportation. In response, cities across the United States have declared themselves “Sanctuary Cities,” meaning they will protect their undocumented citizens from federal authorities.

Despite multiple surrounding sanctuary cities such as Camden, Newark, and Trenton, New Brunswick, NJ, has declared that it will not be a sanctuary campus. This declaration has ignited anger and frustration from city residents, 40 percent of whom are immigrants, and Rutgers University students. In the past few months, hundreds of Rutgers students have rallied for the sanctuary status of the university, in addition to ending Trump’s immigration ban, and construction of the wall bordering Mexico.

On February 7, 2017, New Brunswick residents, Rutgers University students, as well as various other political activist groups, attended an event to filibuster the New Brunswick City Council. When asked how the council was planning on protecting its undocumented citizens, they responded vaguely that Councilwoman Escobar would “discuss it more among themselves” at a future meeting. In addition, Councilman Kevin Egan was rude and dismissive to the group filibustering. The president of the City Council, Glenn Fleming, repeated that nothing could be done “right now.”

I was able to interview an attendee of the filibuster, Kelvin Ayora, a junior at Rutgers University and a member of a student activist organization. Ayora says that he thinks that “progress was made, it [the filibuster] showed that citizens and noncitizens of New Brunswick were passionate and adamant about getting this [sanctuary city status] into law, and the activist groups made it clear they were going to follow up.”

Thirty-five activists attended an hours-long follow-up filibuster which occurred on February 15 and yielded much of the same results. Some activists in attendance at the filibuster have launched complaints against Councilman Egan for behavior “ranging from apathetic and dismissive to hostile and openly aggressive,” said one attendee.

The citizens of New Brunswick, and students of Rutgers University, as well as other activist groups, are showing a valiant and consorted effort to protect the undocumented citizens of the city of New Brunswick. As the son of a once-undocumented immigrant, Kelvin Ayora feels obligated, as I hope do others, to participate in actions to make New Brunswick a sanctuary city.

New Brunswick City Hall via (mycentraljersey.com)

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