Gov. Mikie Sherrill says N.J. will create a database for uploading videos of ICE: ‘Get your phone out’
Mikie Sherrill said her administration will create an online portion for people to upload cell phone videos of ICE, following the national uproar over shootings in Minnesota.
New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill said her administration will create an online database for people to upload videos they record of United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
“If you see an ICE agent in the street, get your phone out,” she urged New Jerseyans in an appearance on The Daily Show on Thursday night with host Desi Lydic in New York City.
Sherrill, a Democrat and former member of Congress, said her administration will set up a portal online “so people can upload all their cell phone videos and alert people.”
Cell phone video from onlookers have been used to rebut claims President Donald Trump’s administration made after federal agents fatally shot Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis.
Sherrill’s plan comes just eight days after being sworn into office. She became the second woman to lead the state and the first female veteran governor in the country.
“They will pick people up, they will not tell us who they are ... they’ll pick up American citizens. They picked up a five-year-old child,” she said on the show. “We want documentation, and we are going to make sure we get it.”
The policy announcement was not featured in the television broadcast, but it was posted to YouTube shortly after by The Daily Show.
Sherrill also said her administration plans to put out information to help New Jerseyans know their rights in the state, and will not allow ICE raids “to be staged from state properties.”
The new governor said she has discussed the plans with Acting Attorney General Jennifer Davenport, who Sherrill appointed.
Sherrill compared ICE to secret police forces she saw when she served in the Navy.
“I knew where this was headed when we started to see DHS people taking loyalty oaths to the president, not the Constitution,” she said. “We saw people in the street with masks and no insignia, so not accountable at all, hiding from the population.”
Pretti was fatally shot by a Border Patrol agent, while Good was shot and killed by an ICE agent. Both agencies fall under the Department of Homeland Security.
She denounced the shootings, calling Good “a mother of three, who drops her six-year-old off in her Honda Pilot and then gets shot and killed.
The former Navy pilot noted that Pretti worked at the VA as an ICU nurse.
“I saw his official photo, and I’ve seen a million of those ... with the flag in the background, I know those guys,” said Sherrill, a former Navy pilot.
She also said she called Trump over his decision to freeze funding for the in-the-works Gateway Tunnel in North Jersey, a project championed by Sherrill that would connect New York and New Jersey under the Hudson River.
“I haven’t heard back from him yet to flag for him that this is about 100,000 jobs in the region, and by the way, his numbers aren’t looking so good in that area,” she said.
Sherrill said the president “should listen to me because I just won back all his voters,” citing her victory in November of more than 14 points, outperforming her Democratic predecessors and reversing rightward shifts in 2024.
But she also said it’s time to “rethink” the federal government’s relationship with states because of attacks from Trump.
“We need to start looking at expanding,” she said. “This is a time when I think we’re going to see a large expansion of state power, because the states are the rational actors in this space.”
Sherrill also played a game with Lydic where she picked which things were most New Jersey, choosing Tony Soprano over Snookie; hating New Yorkers over hating Pennsylvanians; diners over Wawa; and “C’mon!” over “Oh!”