New Jersey officials this week announced the distribution of more than $20 million in state funding for legal services aimed at immigrants facing detention or deportation, more than double what the program received last year. The money flows through the state's Detention and Deportation Defense Initiative, which pays for free or pro bono immigration counsel for income-eligible New Jersey residents, including people currently held at Newark's Delaney Hall detention facility.
Governor Mikie Sherrill, a Democrat, included $20.2 million for the initiative in the current state budget, according to New Jersey Monitor. The FY 2027 Appropriations Act itself appropriates an additional $12 million for the program under Human Services grants-in-aid, according to the New Jersey Legislature's budget scoresheet. That increase builds on $8.2 million the state had allocated to the initiative for fiscal year 2025-2026, per Seton Hall Law.
Of the new total, partner groups will receive $13 million, with the remainder going to the Office of the Public Defender and other advocacy or legal organizations, the New Jersey Monitor reports. Recipients named in that reporting include Church World Service, the NJ Consortium for Immigrant Children, the Immigration and American Citizenship Organization, Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Newark, and the International Rescue Committee. New Jersey Policy Perspective called the increase the largest single-year jump in the program's history, while cautioning in a statement that it may not be enough to meet the need.
Sherrill Points to Rising Detentions Under Trump Administration
Sherrill said her administration mobilized state resources and partnerships to help provide legal counsel to people affected by federal immigration policies, according to the New Jersey Monitor's reporting. She said New Jersey had to protect people's rights to a fair hearing amid the Trump administration's efforts to detain and deport millions of people living in the country illegally, and said the number of immigrants facing prolonged detention without a hearing or other protections is growing as ICE actions increase.
Human Services Commissioner Stephen Cha, whose office oversees the initiative, said people facing detention or deportation should have meaningful access to counsel and the opportunity to be heard, per the same report. The initiative provides free legal advice to low-income immigrants and partners with Legal Services of New Jersey, the American Friends Service Committee, and the Rutgers and Seton Hall law schools. Legal Services of New Jersey coordinates the state funding, and Seton Hall Law receives its share as a sub-grantee, according to the law school.
Delaney Hall Scrutiny and a Contested Morris County Jail
The initiative's scope includes representing low-income people held at Delaney Hall, a 1,000-bed migrant detention facility in Newark that has faced scrutiny after three people died while being held or processed there, according to the New Jersey Monitor. Meanwhile, the Trump administration is pushing to convert a warehouse in Morris County into another migrant jail, a plan opposed by residents, Republican local officials, and Democrats alike, per the same report.
The funding boost also arrives against a shifting political backdrop in Washington. Rebecca Bennett defeated Republican Rep. Tom Kean Jr. earlier this month and will represent the area in Congress starting in January 2027, the New Jersey Monitor notes.
Program Launched in 2018 With a Track Record of Results
Seton Hall Law has participated in the Detention and Deportation Defense Initiative since its 2018 launch, alongside Legal Services of New Jersey, the American Friends Service Committee, and Rutgers Newark Law School's Immigrant Rights Clinic. In its first year, running from November 2018 through October 2019, the program interviewed 1,532 detainees and opened 857 new cases in New Jersey, according to a report from the American Friends Service Committee. State funding for the initiative was $2.1 million in that first year and $3.1 million in its second, the report found.
A close analysis of 200 cases opened and concluded in 2019 by attorneys from three of the program's four state-funded legal service providers found that more than half, 52 percent, of immigrants represented by a Detention and Deportation Defense Initiative attorney were released from detention, compared with just 17.6 percent of unrepresented immigrants facing deportation in New Jersey. Among clients in that sample who received bond hearings, 60 percent were subsequently released on bond, the American Friends Service Committee report found. The figures reflect that limited 2019 case sample rather than current statewide outcomes.
The gap in access to counsel had been documented years earlier. A 2016 report by Seton Hall Law's Immigrants' Rights/International Human Rights Clinic found that only about one-third of detainees in New Jersey had legal representation during the length of that study, underscoring the unmet need the initiative was designed to address.
