We need to see more men like Sheriff Robert Nolan taking action against the injustice of creating sanctuary states. He’s suing the New Jersey AG, who’s defying federal law in order to turn New Jersey into a sanctuary state, and Nolan wants no part of it. So Sheriff Nolan and Cape May County’s Board of Chosen Freeholders are suing in federal court to challenge their AG’s directive, barring Nolan and his officers from cooperating with ICE.

The actions of Attorney General Grewel are blatantly political. He’s using worn-out rhetoric and misleading his constituents. He points out that the law enforcement officers are supposed to enforce state criminal offenses, and the federal government is supposed to handle immigration violations. And his stated concern is insulting to the intelligence of his own officers:

Although state, county, and local law enforcement officers should assist federal immigration authorities when required to do so by law, they should also be mindful that providing assistance above and beyond those requirements threatens to blur the distinctions between state and federal actors and between federal immigration law and state criminal law. It also risks undermining the trust we have built with the public. (italics are mine)

Now the AG agenda becomes clearer. He acts as if there will be some dreadful misunderstanding between the federal and the state officers if they help each other (which they are more than willing to do). And he wouldn’t want to frighten the illegal immigrants into refusing to report crimes because ICE is doing their job. Of course, everyone will be at risk (including the illegal aliens) when criminal illegal aliens are allowed to walk free.

Since Sheriff Nolan could be removed from overseeing the jail (although it’s unlikely he’d lose his elected job) if he didn’t comply with the AG’s directive, he’s trying to do a work-around:

Because of the directive, Nolan’s officers must manually sift through data instead of using the ICE database. This creates problems when ICE’s offices are closed and time is of the essence. For state-to-state extraditions, prisoners can be held for 7 days. Under Grewal’s directive, local police can only detain a prisoner wanted by ICE until midnight on the day they’re processed, Nolan explained.

The irony and tragedy of this situation should not be overlooked:

AG Grewel is afraid that people will not report on crimes that haven’t yet happened, but he won’t protect his own citizens because he might upset those who may or may not be citizens.

He is making the Sheriff’s department’s job more difficult by forcing them to manually locate data which may delay or prohibit arrests.

He is discouraging one of his own Sheriff’s departments from helping federal law enforcement because of a political decision, thus putting the state officers, ICE officers and the citizenry at risk.

He has put Sheriff Nolan in the position of risking his own job and reputation in order for the Sheriff to try to stop the AG and to protect the citizenry, as he is called to do.

I’ll let Sheriff Nolan have the last word:

‘There’s evil forces among us trying to just have their way for political gain,’ Nolan said, describing the entire situation as ‘absurd madness.’ ‘I never thought I’d see the day that I can’t work with a fellow law enforcement officer,’ he said. ‘[Cape May County police] don’t go out into the community. We don’t go knocking on doors in the middle of the night and ripping people apart from their families. We don’t go out into the vineyards and pull people out of the fields or go up on the boardwalk and grab people off the amusement rides,’ Nolan said. He and his officers just want to continue checking arrested people’s names against ICE’s database to ensure U.S. laws are enforced as written.

Sounds pretty insidious, doesn’t it?