NJ Lawmaker Proposes Using CARES Funds for Property Tax Relief Instead of Stimulus Payments for Illegal Immigrants
New Jersey Assemblyman Gerry Scharfenberger, a Republican, proposed in April a bill urging the governor to reconsider diverting $40 million in federal economic relief funds to illegal immigrants and instead use the funds for property tax relief to New Jersey’s struggling homeowners.
Homeowners in New Jersey have been struggling for years to pay their property taxes, even before the COVID-19 pandemic started, Scharfenberger told The Epoch Times in an interview. The problem was compounded by the impact of pandemic restrictions on the state economy, he added. “We have the highest property tax burden in the union.”
Instead of planning for her future once she is released from a California state prison, Gabriela Solano, who was brought to the United States when she was 2 years old, filed a class action complaint Monday seeking to prevent an ICE contractor from arresting her for deportation.
(AP Photo/LM Otero, File)
(CN) A third-party contractor that arrests immigrants released from state and local custody only to put them back behind bars in federal facilities faces a class action filed by a woman who has lived in the United States since she was 2 years old and fears being arrested and deported after serving 22 years in state custody.
Immigration activist groups hold 12th annual anti-ICE rally at Liberty State Park
By Daniel Ulloa/Hudson County View
The vigil was organized by Pax Christi New Jersey, First Friends of New Jersey and New York, the Archdiocese of Newark Justice for Immigrants Task Force, the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) Immigrant Rights Program, the Elizabeth Coalition to House the Homeless, and the St. Joseph Social Service Center.
Pax Christi NJ Organizer Kathy O’Leary noted Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent, is the perfect time to host the vigil since its “40 days of repentance to highlight the immortality and the injustice and the cruelty of the immigrant detention deportation and enforcement system.”
The Associated Press
SACRAMENTO, Calif. An injured California inmate firefighter has been released from federal immigration detention and is home with his parents and sister for the first time since his arrest more than two decades ago when he was age 16, his attorney said Thursday.
Bounchan Keola, now 39, was hurt when a tree fell on him while he was helping fight a deadly wildfire southwest of Redding in Northern California in early October.
He was released from a California state prison two weeks later but was immediately picked up by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement under a cooperation agreement despite the state’s so-called immigrant sanctuary law.