New Jersey’s Sanctuary State Repeats a Deadly Pre-9/11 Mistake
It has been a quarter of a century since the Twin Towers fell and 749 New Jerseyans were murdered by bloodthirsty terrorists. And as a nation, we have been asking ourselves to remember the lessons of 9/11. We must never forget.
Unfortunately, when it comes to immigration, it turns out that the lessons of 9/11 have not been forgotten. Rather, they have callously been set aside by some leaders who would rather gain the support of the far left of the political spectrum—a political base that supports open borders, the obstruction of immigration enforcement, and defunding the police. This, sadly, has certainly been the outcome in New Jersey.
Among the most important lessons we learned from the terrorist attacks on 9/11 is that cooperation between local and federal law enforcement agents is critical to identifying and stopping would-be terrorists. This is especially so when it comes to immigration. The 9/11 Commission, chaired by former New Jersey Governor Tom Kean, specifically cited an intelligence culture in which “the information flow withered” as a primary reason why authorities failed to thwart the largest terror attack in American history. Government-imposed restrictions—notably the infamous 1995 memo issued by Clinton-era Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick—played a decisive and ultimately deadly role in the lead-up to disaster.
The history is chilling. In August 2001, the FBI was actively hunting future 9/11 hijacker Khalid al-Mihdhar, an al-Qaeda operative known to have entered the United States. Incredibly, confusion surrounding the government’s intelligence-law enforcement “wall” kept experienced criminal agents from fully joining the hunt. One furious FBI agent practically predicted the disaster on August 29, 2001, mere days before the attacks: “someday someone will die and, wall or not, the public will not understand why we were not more effective.”
Thirteen days later, al-Mihdhar was among the monsters who hijacked American Airlines Flight 77 and murdered 184 innocent souls at the Pentagon. The 9/11 Commission later concluded that officials were confused about what they could share. Seasoned criminal investigators were consequently “excluded from the search” precisely when their expert assistance could have helped avert thousands of deaths and years of ensuing conflict.
In New Jersey, however, these lessons were not important enough to outweigh the bigger policy objective: open borders. Seventeen years after the September 11th attacks, New Jersey became a “sanctuary state.” The 2018 Attorney General directive barred cooperation with ICE, but its impact went beyond undermining immigration enforcement, compromising our voter rolls, and exacerbating housing costs; it also erected an information wall between New Jersey law enforcement and federal authorities. The state then doubled down on this madness by signing legislation codifying sanctuary statehood earlier this year.
Indeed, twenty-five years after 9/11, New Jersey policymakers have deliberately erected new barriers to cooperation with federal immigration agents, gambling that history won’t repeat itself. That’s not enlightened policymaking. It’s tempting fate.
How long before a non-citizen with designs as grand and evil as the 9/11 hijackers is released from a New Jersey jail, moves unnoticed by federal authorities, and kills more of our citizens? It is only a matter of time with the reckless sanctuary statehood “information wall” in place.
Thankfully, the inevitable is avoidable if Trenton snaps out of its woke daydream, prioritizes public safety and common sense, and ends sanctuary statehood before it’s too late.