NJ To Track ICE Activity Through Citizen Portal, Sherrill Says

If you see ICE agents in your community, Gov. Mikie Sherrill wants to know.

"If you see an ICE agent in the street, get your phone out," Sherrill said Wednesday evening during an appearance on "The Daily Show."

Sherrill said she is working with Acting Attorney General Jennifer Davenport to create a portal where citizens can upload video of activity involving Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in the state in response to a question from host Desi Lydic about recent events in Minnesota, where two U.S. citizens — Renee Good and Alex Pretti — were shot to death by federal agents.

"Keeping New Jerseyans safe is Governor Sherrill’s top priority and, in the coming days, she and Acting Attorney General Davenport will announce additional actions to protect New Jerseyans from federal overreach," said Sean Higgins, Sherrill's communications director, in response to an email from Patch seeking additional details on the portal plans.

A request for comment from the Department of Homeland Security was not immediately answered.

The killings of Good and Pretti have set off intense debate across the country about the actions by ICE and Customs and Border Patrol agents in what the Trump administration says is an effort to remove violent undocumented immigrants.

In Minnesota, Gov. Tim Walz and Mayor Jacob Freya of Minneapolis, where Good and Pretti were killed, have criticized the activities of federal agents that have included people being dragged out of vehicles and forced entry into homes, including an incident where ChongLy “Scott” Thao, a U.S. citizen, was dragged from his home without a warrant in his underwear in the frigid weather.

The actions have led to widespread protests in Minneapolis.

Two federal agents who shot and killed Pretti have been placed on leave, an official with the Department of Homeland Security has said.

"I've seen what secret police forces look like or the fear certain populations live under," Sherrill said, referring to her time serving in the U.S. Navy in other parts of the world. "I knew where this was headed when we started to see DHS people taking loyalty oaths to the president, not the Constitution."

"We saw people in the street with masks and no insignia, so not accountable at all, hiding from the population, and we saw again and again an undermining of what law enforcement should do to keep people safe," Sherrill said.

"But to come to the point where someone like Renee Good, a mother of three, who drops her 6-year-old off in her Honda Pilot and gets shot and killed, to see someone like Alex Pretti, who was an ICU nurse at the VA," Sherrill said. "When you watched the video and you see him standing up to protect those women from tear gas, and he gets taken to the ground, sat on, basically, by three agents, and then shot point blank, execution style by not one, evidently, but two different ICE officers thought that they could shoot him in the street like that, that is unacceptable."

Sherrill said she had met with Davenport to put out information so New Jersey residents know their rights if approached by ICE and Customs and Border Patrol agents.

"We are not going to allow any ICE raids to be staged from state properties," she said, "and we are also going to be standing up a portal so people can upload all their cell phone videos and alert people."

"They have not been forthcoming. They will pick people up. They will not tell us who they are. They will not tell us if they are here legally. They won't check," Sherrill said.

"They'll pick up American citizens. They picked up a 5-year-old child," she said. "We want documentation, and we are going to make sure we get it."

The full interview can be watched here.