Immigration advocates hit policing law

MORRISTOWN, N.J. - Immigrant advocacy groups have urged Morristown officials not to participate in a federal program that would allow local police to enforce immigration laws.

At a rally yesterday outside town hall, Shai Goldstein of the New Jersey Immigration Policy Network said the 287(g) program had led to racial profiling elsewhere and had created fear in the Latino community in the Middlesex County seat.

The Morristown Police Department is one of three New Jersey law-enforcement agencies that have been accepted into the program, which gives police authority to initiate deportation proceedings against illegal aliens linked to serious crimes.

Morristown Mayor Donald Cresitello has said that authority is a needed crime-prevention tool. It has not been implemented because the town's police union has not yet agreed to participate.