The opinion by U.S. District Court Judge Robert Kirsch, sitting in Trenton, could allow the center in Elizabeth run by private corrections company CoreCivic to remain open just days before its contract was set to expire. Federal officials have written in court filings that they “fully intend” to extend the private detention contract.
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, a Democrat, in 2021 signed a law that prohibited new and extended immigrant detention contracts between federal authorities and state, local and private entities. While there were four facilities in the state that held such contracts as the bill was making its way through the Legislature, only the one run by CoreCivic remains.
The legal challenge put Murphy — a progressive who once proclaimed New Jersey a “sanctuary” state for immigrants — at odds with the Biden administration. Attorneys for the Biden administration wrote earlier this summer that the law would be “catastrophic” to federal immigration authorities
Unconstitutional due to the supremacy clause.
But I’m not sure I agree. Does the Constitution or federal law mandate the allowance of private detention centers? If not, I would think that a state would be perfectly within their rights to restrict it. Like with civil rights laws, while a state may pass a law saying “black people can’t do x”, that’s legal until Congress passes a law saying “you must allow people of all races to do the same things”, which they have done.
This is just, like all wrong with regard to the law and the way the Supremacy Clause works.