NJ: ICE must mask! ICE: lol

Good morning!

You may have noticed something during the recent clashes between federal agents and protesters outside migrant jail Delaney Hall in Newark: Federal agents were wearing masks.

Gov. Mikie Sherrill in March signed a bill into law that bars law enforcement from covering their faces, a bill that was aimed at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers. The Trump administration at the time said it would not comply and, sure enough, it isn’t.

“I don’t think they’re focused on due process,” Sherrill said at a press conference Sunday. “Certainly, they’re already breaking the law here in New Jersey by wearing masks everywhere.

The Trump administration has sued New Jersey over the ban, but a judge has not weighed in yet.

On Monday, a Brooklyn man appeared before a federal judge on charges that he threatened the life of a federal agent last week during one of the Delaney Hall clashes. Prosecutors say he’s the guy seen on a widely seen video screaming, “I have your face, mother***er! You’re dead! Dead!” at an agent. The Trump administration has cited this episode as a reason why ICE agents do not want to reveal their faces.

“ICE officers wear face coverings for one reason: to protect themselves and their families from real-world threats including agitators. The danger is not hypothetical,” said Lauren Bis, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

Read more from Sophie Nieto-Muñoz.

Elections: Polls are open, New Jersey, as Democrats and Republicans choose their candidates in November’s midterm elections, when control of Congress is up for grabs. We have a handful of contested contests statewide, though the two major ones are in the 7th District — where four Democrats are vying for the chance to take on Rep. Tom Kean Jr. in the fall — and in the 12th, where a dozen Dems are competing for their party’s nod in what will likely be the de facto general election. The district is unlikely to go for the GOP in November.

Trenton: An Assembly panel advanced a bill Monday that aims to help Medicaid recipients get the volunteer hours they need to satisfy new federal work requirements to stay in the health insurance program. Republicans abstained from voting on the bill, they said, because language in it disparages the new requirements as unreasonable. The state bill, sponsor Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin said, “simply makes it a little bit easier for the people who have it a little bit harder.”

Schools: Senate lawmakers heard two bills yesterday aimed at boosting state school funding for specific districts, those in the Highlands and Pinelands preservations areas and those that are spending far less per pupil than the statewide average. Few opposed the two bills, which did not receive a vote, but some cautioned that the state should make wholesale changes to its school funding formula rather than continuing to make piecemeal changes to help this district or the other.

Trump: President Donald Trump’s nearly $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund has become so unpopular in some parts that the administration may drop the entire idea. The U.S. Department of Justice on Monday said it would comply with a judicial order temporarily halting it from taking any action on the fund, which Trump proposed as a way to compensate people he claims were unfairly targeted by federal authorities. Axios reports, citing unnamed sources, said the fund is “dead for now.”