Third Statement to Middlesex County Board of County Commissioners
75 Bayard St
New Brunswick, New Jersey
January 15, 2026

My name is Irfan Khawaja. I live in Princeton but work in Iselin. This is my third statement here on the matter of what was previously called the Immigrant Trust Act. As everyone knows, we’re in the home stretch toward passage of a version of the Act, but not there yet. To that end, I want to address some issues raised by the last meeting on that topic back on December 18.

We were given very confident assurances last time by Mr Rios that anyone who wanted to talk to the Board could contact it by email and do so. I contacted the Board by email on December 29, case number CAS-09995-L7X5C9. More than two weeks later, I’ve gotten no response.

At the December 18 meeting, around 70 minutes into the meeting, Jenny Psaki of Cranbury addressed the Board.* About three minutes into her comment, she asked, “Is there any one of you who would be publicly willing this evening to say you support the Immigrant Trust Act?” A long silence followed. “Any one of you?” she repeated. After ten full seconds of silence, Commissioner Shanti Narra, deferentially asking Director Rios for permission to speak, said: “Director, I’d like to speak. I will tell you that I am supportive of the Immigrant Trust Act.” That was a relief, except for the implication that Ms Narra needed Mr Rios’s permission to answer such a straightforward question, and that the answer had to be addressed, not to the questioner or the public, but Mr Rios.

Ms Psaki then asked “Are there any others who would be willing to say publicly…?” At that point, Ms Narra broke in with a statement, much of it critical of Ms Psaki and the activist camp. It was “unfair,” she said, “to call out” individual commissioners, “each and every person,” as she put it.

Well, each and every person wasn’t called out. No one was called out. The body as a whole was asked for their opinion, and in that context, individuals were invited to speak or not. That’s the opposite of calling people out. I could easily show you the difference if you want, by demonstrating right here what it is to call someone out. And what was accomplished was pretty instructive. What we saw was a legislative body being asked their view on a pending piece of legislation. And yet what we also saw was a body absolutely terrified to answer the question asked of them, as though to say: “Father, let this cup pass from me” (Mt 26:39). Which raises the obvious issue: if this is how afraid they are of a question, what will induce them to stand up to ICE?

City Hall, New Brunswick

We were then given a mini-lecture about how much the County has done for immigrants in the past. I can’t emphasize enough how irrelevant this entire lecture was. For one thing, no part of it answered the question asked. The question was who supported the ITA. It doesn’t answer this question to give us an inventory of what you’ve done in the past. For another, the County’s past performance has no bearing on the threats of the present. If we lose the protections codified in the legislation, we don’t get them back by brandishing a bunch of gold stars that commend your past performance. We just lose them. That’s it.

Ms Narra makes much of the fact that when the Commission previously took action on migrant defense, it was called out by the first Trump Administration. I wonder if Ms Narra has really understood who it is she was addressing. She was addressing (among others) the Rapid Response teams of Resistencia en Acción and DIRE. The people in the audience weren’t just at risk of being called out by some pol in Washington. They’re at risk every day of having their heads blown off by some unhinged, trigger-happy gunman from ICE. What happened to Renee Good could just as well happen to them, and will doubtless happen again. They’re not deterred by that prospect, yet the Commission is deterred by much less. “We went through a lot,” Ms Narra tells us. Well, so have we. And there’s more to come for all of us.

Metropark Rail Station, looking southwest, toward Trenton

Ms Narra tells us of the respect she has for her colleagues. I would have more respect for them if they passed a resolution, even one that comes after the governor’s expected signature on the Immigrant Protection Package. What that would do is align this county with the seven counties that favored the ITA, as contrasted with the many counties that are obviously hostile to it—Sussex, Warren, Hunterdon, Monmouth.

I was a front-line health care worker in Hunterdon during COVID. In March 2021, I brought to the attention of Gurbir Grewal and Jen Davenport that the state’s COVID mandates were openly being flouted in Hunterdon County, not just by ordinary people but by law enforcement itself. Davenport, reluctant to play whack-a-mole with this or that agency, declined to pursue the matter. I’m not criticizing her. I’m just saying: a version of that is bound to happen again. The counties that hate migrants will hate the Immigrant Protection Package and refuse to enforce it. We need to know that Middlesex isn’t one of them. So Jenny Psaki’s question is still open. And it still demands an answer.

Renee Good, photographed by her killer Jonathan Ross approximately 26 seconds before her death

*For video of the meeting, use this link, which opens in a new window. My comments are at minute 46:00. Jenny Psaki’s comments come in at 1:10:25. I highly recommend watching the whole exchange that begins there and proceeds to the end of the meeting twenty-five minutes later.