NJAIJ submitted this testimony before the Assembly State and Local Government Committee on July 24th, 2025. 

Public Testimony from the New Jersey Alliance for Immigrant Justice

NJAIJ is the state’s largest immigration coalition. Together with over 60 member organizations, NJAIJ fights for policies that empower and protect immigrants. NJAIJ membership comprises direct service organizations, labor groups, faith, and community-based organizations, grassroots, policy, and civil rights organizations. 

No one, least of all NJAIJ, would oppose legislation that provides protection, dignity, and appreciation for the diverse identities and heritage of the people that call New Jersey home. But we must be clear and careful in how we define the harm and discrimination committed against individuals rather than the critique levied against Israel. The language included in amended bill A3558, which copies over the IHRA working definition on anti-semitism, has already been used to suppress the first amendment rights here in New Jersey. Highschool youth in Camden who distributed flyers for a student walkout with the slogan “Free Gaza” was shut down after county commissioners invoked the IHRA definition of antisemitism and threatened to withdraw funding from the school. We cannot risk this in New Jersey, where the first amendment rights of individuals and institutions far outside Jewish and Muslim communities are facing threat of federal retaliation and scrutiny over their advocacy. 

We are a coalition whose power is derived by bringing people together, not dividing them. Our strength is built on the interconnections of our commonalities and not our differences. NJAIJ’s priorities are member derived and driven and reflect the lived, community, and institutional expertise of our membership. As such, NJAIJ is well-positioned to deliver the following testimony in opposition to A3558 and issue the following recommendations:

• Strike the new amended language in the bill from Section 2 (b), Subsection 7, 8, and 10 which could be used, not only to suppress the first amendment rights of New Jerseyans, but to harm or target the community based direct and legal service providers within NJAIJ’s coalition.

• Pass and invest in affirmative programming and public education before considering additional punitive measures like A3558 which may result in the unintended consequence of increasing disproportionate surveillance and targeting of certain communities.

• Amend and introduce an Assembly version of S2937 to include appropriate definitions of both anti-semitism and Islamophobia for the Office of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging to incorporate into State law.
• Delay today’s vote, continue committee meetings over the summer, both on this issue and more pressing protections like the Immigrant Trust Act.

Recommendations

NJAIJ recommends that the Assembly State and Local Government Committee take the following actions.

Strike the new amended language in the bill from Section 2 (b), Subsection 7, 8, and 10 which could be used, not only to suppress the first amendment rights of New Jerseyans, but to harm or target the community based direct and legal service providers within NJAIJ’s coalition.

For New Jersey Alliance for Immigrant Justice, these definitions could be used to further weaponize attacks against nonprofit organizations serving immigrant communities and advocating for comprehensive immigration reform. 

NJAIJ regularly leads advocacy days, like our “Trenton Takeover,” and legislative visits for our members. In 2023, we had the pleasure of meeting an undocumented mother (referred to as “Ms. H.A,”) and her teenaged son (referred to in this testimony as “A.A.”) who both joined us on a trip to Washington D.C. to support citizenship for all. During the course of our trip, we determined A.A. was eligible for healthcare access under “Cover All Kids,” which had expanded to include undocumented youth earlier that year. We began working with Ms. H.A. on collecting necessary paperwork, but like many Palestinian refugees, her family was effectively stateless. Their only IDs and passports were issued by the Palestinian Authority. The United States recognizes Palestinian Authority-issued identification as travel documents but not for citizenship claims or purposes. This is a grey area that applies to many Palestinian families. We were fortunate to be able to find constituent support for the family through Senator Booker’s office and share Ms. H.A. and A.A.’s story with legal firms. But our ability to explain the systemic barriers this family faced required us to voice the often racist and exclusionary policies and attitudes that caused Ms. H.A.’s family to flee violence and prevented them from securing proper documentation. Though our critique was evenly applied to both Israel’s domestic policies and the United States Department of Homeland Security’s own immigration policies, under the definitions as they are now written in A3558, a bad actor could claim NJAIJ is engaging in anti-semtic work due to our advocacy for this family.

Similarly, in 2019, NJAIJ pulled together a philanthropic collaborative totalling $1.4 million over two years to provide seed funding to immigrant-led organizations traditionally left behind by philanthropic giving. We issued a competitive request for proposals within our coalition and ultimately selected a farmworker collective, a filipino laborer collective, and the Palestinian American Community Center (PACC). We chose PACC because they had a model of integrating civic engagement into cultural heritage programming. There was an emphasis on cultivating programming that was subject to discrimination, erasure, and displacement in Palestine. The program was designed to welcome families through cultural programming and then empower them to be active civic participants here in New Jersey. Under A3558’s current definitions, NJAIJ’s award of to this organization for their programming and the recognition of the diaspora and displacement dynamics that necessitate such programming, as well as the gift from the participating philanthropic organizations, could be construed as critical of Israel and anti-semitic or showing disproportionate favor to communities and organizations harmed by Israel’s policies. 

Though the intent of A3558 is to protect communities and keep them safe from hate-based bias, discrimination, and violence, it will have the unintended consequence of sweeping far more people into a path of danger where the onus is on the individual or the organization to defend themselves against accusations. A close reading of the IHRA document itself concedes it is not legally binding, but adapting it through A3558 would make it so.

Pass and invest in affirmative programming and public education before considering additional punitive measures like A3558 which may result in the unintended consequence of increasing disproportionate surveillance and targeting of certain communities.

New Jersey needs affirmative programming, starting in schools and reaching the full state through public education and informational ad-buys. When Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPI) were experiencing higher rates of hate-based bias and discrimination during the course of the 2020 pandemic, the New Jersey legislature bravely passed an inclusive K-12 curriculum on AAPI identity, heritage, and history. New Jersey also recognizes a number of commemorative holidays and heritage months that reflect the diversity of our state. The infrastructure and the precedence is here, but we need the legislature to be motivated by collective healing and community, not further division. In New York City for example, the Borough of Manhattan offers an art diversion program through the District Attorney’s office wherein youth convictions for hate-crimes can be dropped if both the victim and perpetrator consent to going through a holistic healing arts program that promotes cross cultural awareness.

Amend and introduce an Assembly version of S2937 to include appropriate definitions of both anti-semitism and Islamophobia for the Office of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging to incorporate into State law.

It would be impossible to address anti-semitism without addressing white Christian nationalism or the rampant Islamophobia in New Jersey and beyond. The Senate has already moved on a bill which moves definitions of both forward. The definition for both must be revisited and amended before the Assembly adopts the bill, and should be moved forward in favor of A3558.

Delay today’s vote, continue committee meetings over the summer, both on this issue and more pressing protections like the Immigrant Trust Act. NJAIJ does not dispute that hate-based violence and bias is on the rise.