Democratic officials from across the state say they're still outraged about the immigration action taken at a Newark business last week, where Ice or Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents raided a fish market and detained three undocumented workers.

Ice says the incident wasn't part of a ramped up activity under the Trump administration, but a preplanned, targeted operation.

New reporting, though, from The Washington Post says the white House has directed Ice officials to bump up arrests to at least 1500 a day.

Senior political correspondent David Kruse reports.

If immigration enforcement has been an abstract concept for you, prepare for it to come into sharper focus.

Now, as raids and enforcement actions have begun, including here in Newark, where a raid last week sent an alarm through the immigrant community.

Newark Mayor Rasp Baraka gathered advocates and elected officials at an emotionally charged press conference the next day, charging ice with trashing due process by detaining citizens along with those undocumented.

They say, well, in a very cavalier way, these things happen.

There will be some citizens who are we going to ask for the ID and that paperwork?

There are going to be some citizens who we stopped and questioned.

So then my my response to that is, how do you determine who's undocumented and who's a criminal just by looking at them?

Ice maintains it was a pre-planned target and didn't detain any citizens.

Immigrants rights advocates like Amy Torres of the new Jersey Alliance for Immigrant Justice say the ripple effect of just one week of Ice enforcement action is already being felt.

If they can't deport and physically detain you, they want to detain you into the isolation of your own home so that you're just enrolling your kid from school so that when you are sick or having a health emergency, you're too scared to go to the doctor.

Torres and others have been pushing for lawmakers to pass the Immigrant Trust Act as a way to provide some measure of protection for those here without papers and those with all their documents in order.

Senator Gordon Johnson is the primary sponsor.

Prevents, the local government from sharing information with the federal government regarding people's status.

It's a protects folks who go to hospitals, let's say, for, for care that the hospital then have to share that information, with with the federal government I think goes to schools, too.

But in another sign that Democrats are becoming more sensitive to how Republic INS have framed the immigration debate, the bill has lost its legs, floundering in committee with seemingly no champion.

Conservative Assemblyman Brian Bergen says Democrats won't post the bill because they know that voters support stepped up Ice enforcement.

And I think people would universally agree if somebody is a criminal, they should be deported.

It's that simple.

Even so, uplifting chart.

Yeah.

Even on a shoplifting charge, I mean, well, if you're a criminal, you should be you should be deported because you've already committed a crime by being here illegally.

And I think there's people sometimes seem to forget that.

But that is the truth.

The inaction on the bill and the muted response from leaders, especially given recent events, has been deafening.

Say advocates like Karol Ruiz of Wind of the spirit.

The cowardice that we are seeing.

I also want to give my legislators the benefit of the doubt.

If it's not cowardice is ignorance.

If it's not cowardice or ignorance, it's fear.

It is delay.

But what it isn't is a correct analysis of our constituents, of the voters of New Jersey.

If we need a special session to bring our legislators in to get this bill through.

Anything we can do to get this thing passed.

Pass the goal line.

I'm willing to do.

That seems unlikely, given that the entire Assembly is on the ballot in the fall.

And when that's the case, the protection of a non-voting constituency can sometimes be trumped by the protection of incumbency.

I'm David Cruz, NJ Spotlight News.