Just weeks into her appointment as interim U.S. attorney for New Jersey, Alina Habba said she has launched an investigation into the state’s top Democratic officials for not cooperating with federal officials on immigration enforcement.
In an interview Thursday on Fox News, Habba said she told her office to investigate New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy and Attorney General Matthew Platkin over a 2018 directive that prevents state officers from detaining individuals solely due to questions about their immigration or citizenship status or from participating in federal immigration operations.
“I want it to be a warning for everybody that I have instructed my office today to open an investigation into Gov. Murphy, to open an investigation into Attorney General Platkin, who has also instructed the state police not to assist any of our federal agencies that are under my direction … not to cooperate,” Habba said. “That will no longer stand.”
Habba, President Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer, said the investigations “will start immediately,” citing U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi’s remarks about targeting migrants with criminal records. (The Trump administration has arrested and deported hundreds of migrants to date, many of whom reportedly face no criminal charges or have no criminal record.)
“Anybody who does get in that way — in the way of what we are doing, which is not political, it is simply against crime — will be charged in the state of New Jersey for obstruction, for concealment, and I will come after them hard,” Habba said.
Habba’s probe into Murphy and Platkin appears to be part of a Trump administration effort to strong-arm local officials into cooperating with its sweeping immigration crackdown. In January, the Justice Department threatened to prosecute state and city officials who refuse to help federal immigration agents.
Murphy has pushed back on Habba’s claim about crime in New Jersey, saying in a podcast interview set to be released Friday that the state cooperates with federal immigration authorities “daily.”
Platkin was less obliging. In a news conference on Friday morning, he said he has tried to contact Habba repeatedly, to no avail. “I don’t typically launch investigations on cable news networks,” Platkin said.
“I know the interim U.S. attorney — she hasn’t been there that long — said publicly she wants to politicize the office,” he added. “I hope she starts doing her job.”
