Tonight on NJ PBS news.

Immigration enforcement under scrutiny once again here in our area after two high profile incidents in recent days.

Tonight, we talk with a leading immigration activist about the fresh outrage surrounding these cases and ho communities are fighting back.

Also, a state lawmaker pushing for major changes to election security here in Jersey in the wake of even more revelations about problematic voter registration, voter ID, regular audits an even monitoring of ballot boxes.

All of that on the table.

And tonight, that lawmaker is joining us t talk about his push for reforms.

And if you're renting property here in Jersey and would like a little more relief from the state when it comes to paying the bill, well, you don't want to miss our conversation tonight with a new Jersey spotlight reporter asking tough questions about relief for renters that has not kept pac with inflation, could more help now be on the way?

And PBS news starts now.

This is NJ PBS news with Rob Nelson.

We begin tonight with new questions about Ice detention and enforcement here in new Jersey.

Questions now being driven by two high profile cases.

Last week's release of Martin Soto is prompting new scrutiny of what is happening exactly inside New Jersey's Ice detention facilities.

Soto's attorney says he is cooperating with the state investigation into possible involuntary servitude at Delaney Hall in Newark.

Soto says he was forced to perform difficult, even unsanitar work for $1 a day and then face retaliation after helping lead a hunger and labor strike.

The Department of Homeland Security however, they have accused Soto of inciting unrest and causing property damage.

At the same time, a controversial Ice arrest in Harrison that's in Hudso County is raising new questions about how federal agents operate in our state.

After videos show children crying and literally clinging to a man as he was taken into custody.

Together, these cases are intensifying the debate over Ice tactics, accountability, and how much power state an local leaders have to intervene.

Joining us now.

Jorge Torres, national organizing director for the National Day Labor Organizing Network.

He's also a member of the Ice Out of NJ coalition.

He worked closely with the Soto famil throughout Martinez detention.

All right.

Thank you for giving us some time today.

We certainly appreciate it.

Let's get right to those allegations that were made during tha press conference a few days ago as Soto got out of detention here.

When you hear the phrase involuntary servitude, it's striking.

Can you talk a little bit more about the conditions that he says are unfolding inside Delaney Hall?

Thank you for the invitation, Robin, for the space.

Basically that's common.

We had here that a lot of detainees.

Chelsea Delaney Hall in i the less of a detention center, they always are forced or they treat them to do forced labor.

They tell them, if you're not going to if you're going to do this or you're not going to work like that, or you're not going to work this many hours, we will not give you access t to your comments, to your calls.

We will hold you more right here.

So they they treat them to do those type of works and long hours works as well.

And obviously now there's a state investigation happening into those claims.

And the state played obviousl a pivotal role in getting him.

Getting him out is what do you want the public to know about how he was able to get out?

And is is the state now creating a new playbook that they could use to get others out as well, because of these labor related claims and accusations by detainees?

This is not this is not new.

Under the Biden administration.

We as as an organization were able to support a lot of cases that were lower.

Wizard of, wage theft cases.

But right now I think is a is as important also for for the lawyer to to give this comment around you.

Beezus.

But right now the state is actually, also doing an investigation of fo what happened in the Laney Hall.

But this is nothing new, I think is very, common that we have here all the violations that are happening insid and in a lot of a lot of people that are detainees are extremely concerned about the conditions that are still happening in the Laney and in the lis of the tension center as well.

And very quickly, where does Soto's case go from here?

What is the next step?

That's also an answer for for the lawyer but I'm pretty sure she has a, a a a strategy to keep us all right here.

And just to just for the public.

He is married with the USA citizen.

Person.

And also his children are USA citizen.

So it is it is a path for him and her.

His worker, his lawyer.

Sorry.

Is is working on it.

This other case that's making headlines, of course, what we saw unfold in Harrison in Hudson County, that video of children literally clinging to this ma who was being taken away by ice.

Have you have you been able to find ou anything else about that case?

And also, obviously, we saw what happened in upper Manhattan, in New York, where authorities say someone was trying to get away from ice, and they ended up shootin inside the car with a five year old boy in the back.

So these two incidents, with children in, have you learned more about either case and the fact that this is all back in the headlines again?

Are people feeling regal about the immigration issue or simply reengaged by it?

The the the level of violence that we have seen by this is agents are are horrific are terrorizing our communities.

The level of violence are going in a, in a in the level that we have never seen before.

People are traumatizing, the children.

The children is traumatized.

Is a is a traumatized process for this this family.

He was actually just parking right before all the this footage that we have seen in social media.

We are working with the family, to see how they're goin to process this, this incident.

They have a lawyer already, and soon they are going to be able and make a decisio if they're going to come public.

But I think it's als we cannot normalize this level of violence.

The state and the administration has to have some type of accountability.

It is unbelievable what this administration is getting away with, shootings.

That's.

And and today I just want to mention that the whole Edwin's family is celebrating the what would really what would we be the the 40 years old of Edwin that passed awa inside of the detention center in the Laney Hall?

And right now, what els do you want to see the governor do about this?

He was on the show a few days ago and pretty much said she would like to see it closed, but doesn't quite have the legal authority to do it.

So now the focus has shifted to oversight.

Is is that enough?

No, it's not enough that the investigation, I think, is going on.

I think we are in the right path as a state, but I think the, the there's a couple of thing that the governor can do that, you know, the release of the 20 million for the D program is, is is not there yet.

We need more legal representation.

Communities are an urgent of of of having legal representation is is is you know we haven't here where it's going to go.

What's the process.

I think also, a lot of officials are has to make more put more pressure on shutting down detention centers, especially Delaney Hal and Elizabeth Detention Center.

But we had heard that also there is the the the raspberry detention center or processing center how they call it the that they you know, we have seen and there's reports that people have been detained there for weeks.

What's going on with that?

They didn't have the, the authority or all the legal permits to open it.

It's the same thin that happens with Delaney Hall.

They didn't, have all the permits from the the fire department to open the Laney Hall again, and they did it.

So I think it's it is it is important for the lack o officials to put more pressure, around here and the conditions and the Laney will have not improve since the strike, for example, since Martin's auto started strikes probably eight months ago.

And now he's free, but is also the conditions he were he was asking in the press conference how are the conditions?

And he got emotional and saying that the the conditions have not improved.

So I guess is is is is it is more more to do around that put put pressure across in the detention centers.

And real quick.

All right.

Just 30s on this.

And this is a real practical question.

Is the advic you're giving to folks out there seeing these kind of reports, these kind of videos who are scared?

Is your advice to hide to to become less visible or go about your life?

But if you get caugh or get detained, don't resist.

What is your practical advice?

My advic today is to keep doing legally.

What is what is your own perception of what you have to do?

It is hard to to tell people what to do at this moment, but this moment is is crucial for us to keep organizing, to keep building networks around yourself, to go to a church, to find a local nonprofit organization, to to find a local mutual, a mutual mutual aid group that will help you out.

I think it's building thos networks that will protect you.

All right.

Is national organizing director for the National Day Labor Organizing Network and also member, as you see there on his t shir of the ice out of NJ coalition.

We know this issue is going nowhere.

So standing invitation t to come back and keep us updated as, as these kind of stories get back in the headlines.

Corey thanks for giving us some time.

Thank you for the invitation.

We turn now to New Jersey's voter rolls and a question that goes beyond one computer failure.

How do we fix a serious problem without making it harder for eligible voters to cast a ballot?

Well, motor Vehicle Commission error improperly registered roughly 6600 applicants who had indicated they were not U.S.

citizens.

Hundreds then later did indeed cast ballots.

Although the state says some had other registration records suggesting they may have been eligible to vote.

Republican Assemblyman Alex has responded with five bills of his own.

That would do a number of things, including requiring photo ID at the polls, audit voter rolls twice a year, live stream ballot drop boxes and mail counting and mail ballot counting, tighten signature rules, and also require mail ballots to arrive by Election Day.

At the same time, all that's going on, a new lawsuit is accusing the Ocean County Board of Elections of selectively targeting 39 Democratic and unaffiliated voters in Bay head, while allegedly leaving Republican in similar circumstances alone.

The board chairman says it did indeed act lawfully.

Assemblyman, whose district includes parts of Monmouth and Ocean counties.

Is kind enough to join us now to go over all things voter integrity in our state.

We both know this is a a huge issue.

It's part of the national dialog.

It has been in this era of President Trump.

And Jersey does have an issue.

And we've kind of kind of a drip, drip of news over the last several months.

We named what your five bills would do of that package of five.

What do you think is the most important and what anything you've proposed have stopped the security issues we've seen so far?

Yeah.

Well, I think it's a combinatio of things that are really going to help prevent this fro happening again going forward.

You know, in terms of one that stand out, I think voter ID in any form really needs to happen.

It's one of those 80, 20 issues.

You know, 80% of the state believes in voter ID, regardless of party.

It's common sense.

You know, I say, you know, for me to go into the state House, I need an ID.

So the idea that you would need a legitimate government issued ID to vote, it' probably number one on the list.

And one of the simpler ones to address.

There's things that we can do to make it easier.

You know that's always been the argument.

Well, it's a constitutional right to vote.

You can't force somebody to pay for it.

One of the bills that I have offers a free non driver license ID.

So we get rid of that excuse.

So that's one example of where we can focus.

And then you know as I have mentioned before, I've gotten bills in addition to the five.

We've got a task force that we're putting together that has a package of seven bills that really, I think titans things up and really comprehensively looks across how we can make this thing better and how we can prevent a similar issue that was reported back in April.

I mean, you say the w in that sentence, who's the we?

The Assembly Republican Caucus created a election integrity task force.

I'm on that task force, one of five, and we just put out a package of seven bills last week that includes two of the five that I had submitted earlier this year.

It really is well thought out.

It took a while to put together.

In fact, these started even before the governor announced there actually was voter fraud.

Some have gone incense, but we've been focused on this issue long before the voter fraud was even reported.

And let me just, I guess, a step back from the bills at hand.

And a bigger picture a bigger picture question here.

When we say fraud, that to me always implies something malicious has happened.

I am knowingly trying to deceive yo or to to compromise the process.

Is there any evidence that of the what we know the couple hundred folks who did cast a ballot, that there was a knowing effort to compromise the election, or this was all just a series of software glitches, bureaucratic mistakes?

Yeah.

Because is there anything malicious here at play or just a lot of human and technological error?

Yeah, it's a good question.

And and one of the bills, as part of the package of seven that I mentioned, it creates a bipartisan legislative committee to investigate exactly that.

You know, that's part of the issue I think right now is this was reported back earlier this year.

And at this point, we really don't know all the details.

You know you've got this software company saying wasn't us.

You know, we didn't have a glitch.

It worked exactl like it was supposed.

To work.

They're blaming the state, right?

You know, the current administration is blaming the past administration because that's the period they reported it actually occurred.

You know, we can't have th same people who discovered it, you know, investigating it.

So bipartisan committee looking into it has subpoena powers, can bring witnesses, can go get documents, and let's figure it out and let's do it in a partizan manner because it's that important.

It's not something that we can just let go and say, well, it happened once and it was only, you know, 400 or whatever it might be.

What's what's the right number, like how many bad votes are good, you know.

So I think the fact that any occurred and we still don't know the total number, we just got a report last wee that over 700 more were found.

So you mentioned, you know, it seems like things are trickling in.

It does seem like every time we look, you know, we're finding something.

So let's do it the right way and try to fix this thing going forward.

And to be fair, have you seen any evidence to suggest tha at least what we know of so far has been enough to swing or compromise any kind of election at any level?

No, I don't think we do.

You know, and again I think that's because it hasn't been looked into in that greater detail.

But to your point, you've got local elections that sometimes are swung by single digit votes.

Right.

So when we talk about, well, there's only 700 or 400 or whatever the number might be, depending on where they were, it could swing an election for sure.

So I think we need to understand that.

And if there are other things that we have to think about, like are ther concentrations in certain areas that we're seeing in this problem?

Right.

Are we seeing at certain election levels local versus state, for example.

Right.

So I do think those are the kin of questions we need answered.

And I think we're putting forward the legislative caucus is putting forward ideas that we we can find those things out and hopefully prevent them going forward.

And again, you're talking about the photo ID, you're talking about literally recording or live streamin surveillance of the mallet, the the mail in ballot drop boxes, cure form, Mail-In ballots 8:00 on Election day or they don't count.

So a number of of of small issues, mechanical issues about how we but how we vote in large would any if your package passed today just come back to an earlier point?

Would it have stopped anything that we've seen go wrong in Jersey so far?

It may, you know, like for example, a lot of what you just mentioned, I consider common sense bills like these aren't these aren't crazy ideas.

The idea that you would have video surveillance on drop boxes, right.

Ballot drop boxes they're that important, right?

These these are important.

These these ballots.

Nobody's questioning that.

The fact that it's not required today, frankly, is ridiculous in my opinion.

It also requires video surveillance of the counting of those ballots.

So again, it's it's ensuring that nobody can sa we didn't do everything we could to protect those ballots and, and the security of them.

So yeah, that that's certainly something that could be a preventative measure.

That's why we have cameras in places like hospitals and nursing homes and things like that.

Right.

So having those are common sense.

The cutoff of a m on the ballots, again, I think is a common sense item now.

But you want to punish people for a postal mistake isn't always no in a timely service.

You know, and I've got questions on that one too.

I'm even open to, you know, talking about what the exact date is.

But we need an exact date.

That's the issue.

I can't tell you how many constituents I hear from where they went to bed on election night and one candidate was winning.

And then the next day, five days later, even a week later, it changed, you know, and and.

Because votes got county well, a bad thing.

Well, the most got.

I think it raises questions on the integrity of the vote.

I think that's reall what people feel is like, hey, it didn't used to be this way.

You know, we were still able to vote, get our votes in.

There was never really a big complaint that you couldn't vote, right.

And it seems like it's just open ended right now.

I think that's the difference.

It appears that it's becoming a tightrope to walk, because you do want voting as a constitutional right in this country, to be able to as many people t vote and be heard as possible.

And you also want it to b secure.

It seems like an issue.

There would be some logical middle ground.

Hopefully we we get there.

Do you worry, though, that the larger conversation that we've been having for years in this country about rigged elections an accusations that are unfounded?

Do you worry that that has that has hurt public confidence in our elections to a needless extent, to exaggerate it extent?

Well, I think if you compare what you hear federally and how things are perceived federally versus the state.

I've said this publicly many times.

Trenton and how we operate in Trenton is not the same as what you think about federally and the polarization that you see, right?

I have colleagues on the other side of the aisle I consider friends.

We work on bills together even though I'm in the minority.

I've had numerou bills, moved out of committee, moved to the assembly floor and signed into law.

Right.

And it's because we do work together.

And, you know, we have our own beliefs.

How we do certain things differ from time to time.

But I would sa at the state level, things move in a much different way than I think it's perceived at the federal level.

Assemblyman Alex, thank you so much for being here.

Your time.

Keep us posted on how this progress.

It is progressive.

It's a it's a fascinating topic that we all have a vested interest in.

So we'll.

Do appreciate that.

Thank you.

And a reminder the deadline to register for New Jersey's general election is tomorrow.

That's October 13th in person.

Early voting run through the 24th of this month, all the way through the 1st of November.

And as we all know, Election Day itself is Novembe the 3rd, when new Jersey rents, of course, keep rising.

But the state benefit designed to provide renters some kind of relief has remained pretty much frozen in time.

When the anchor program was launched just a few years ago in 2022, most eligible renters received 450 bucks.

Four years later the basic payment is still $450, even as the rental costs continue to skyrocket.

So why his rent to relief failed to keep pace?

Joining us now and Jay Spotlight, new senior reporter and state budget expert John Meyer.

John, thank you for giving us some time.

I mean, the intro set it up pretty well.

Why has the rental benefit not kept pace with the cost of living an issue that seems especially on fir now because of the affordability crisis and debate in this country?

Yeah, again it's great to be with you today to talk about this specifically.

You know, for many in new Jersey, housing costs are, you know, we can talk about gas, we can talk about groceries, but housing costs already start at an elevated level.

And so it's the pressure point for a lot of new Jersey residents.

We also have t look at these programs, however, in the context of the state budget.

New Jersey is a state that spends more than it takes in annually from taxes.

And there's been a big budget surplus in recent years.

And for the last few, that's been tapped to sort of put the budget in balance.

But that means the state is always looking for all the money that it can get, and it doesn't necessarily have the best footing to be able to fund these housin affordability programs in ways that would work best for recipients.

And I think tenants are probably the best example we should say, at the beginning.

Many states don't offer these types of programs, and among the ones that do, many don't offer renters a rebate.

So new Jersey renters are lucky, or at least rare.

Anything at all.

If we're to look across the nation, right.

So homeowners get considerabl more money, has have homeowners has that subsidy or that whateve you want to call a rebate.

Has that kept pace with inflation while rentals have not it.

The homeowne rebate has also remained flat, although housing advocate will note the one big advantage that homeowners have relative to renters homeowners.

If you own your home, you have an asset and it' typically appreciating in value.

Or if you're paying a mortgage, you're building equity in that asset.

Your your housing costs are going towards something.

If you're a renter, you might be footing tens of thousands of dollars annually in rental payments.

But at the end of the year, you're basically starting over from scratch because you're not owning anything.

You're not building up equity in anything.

You're buildin your landlord's equity.

Exactly.

You're helping the balance sheet of the business run by the perso who's renting you your property.

And so that's one of the big differences.

The other is the homeowner benefit is so much larger.

It ranges from $1,000 to 1500, whereas the renter benefit is down at $450.

Or seniors get a bonus up to 700.

And so there's a lot of difference.

And if you again, if you talk to housing advocates, they will point out the people who are probably most needing the bigger boost who are most at risk of perhaps losing their housing du to rising costs that are largely out of their control.

It's the cohort that is renting.

Should renters in new Jersey have any hope at all that the anchor benefit will get bigger or better?

22nd.

The it's being discussed at the advocate level, so there are reports coming out and people who are pressing for this, but it's not something that we hear discussed too much by policymakers in Trenton, although there are those who are pushing them to put this further up into th conversation, that's for sure.

And the governor is here, as you well know, a few days ago and we asked her about this, what what did you get from her on this rental anchor issue?

You know, she brought up a recent law that now bans algorithmic rent setting, which is something, again, that's that's raised a lot of attention, especially in the housing community.

And so that will theoretically reduce pressure, you know, but it doesn't unravel some of the big increases in rents that we've seen in the last few years.

I mean, just the average fair market two bedroom unit is up some 6 to $70 just since anchor was created.

And so it stands for Affordable New Jersey communities for Homeowners and renters.

If the idea is to keep communities affordable for renters, that 450 rebate has been completely blown awa and then some by the increases in rent since anchor was established.

And listen for 50 is better than zero.

All help us appreciate it.

Is there a breakdown on top of your head in terms of all those who benefit from the anchor program?

What percentage is homeowners?

What percentage is renter and how many renters statewide get some kind of anchor?

Yeah, it's a little bit more on the homeowner side.

It's over a million.

It's not at that high on on the renter side.

And there's a good debat among like policy wonks to say is that because peopl don't know about it, or is that, you know, a homeowner might be more attuned to some of these things where renters tend to bounce around and not have the same address every year.

So I think that's an interesting question.

To get more information about.

All right.

Well, listen again summer leaves better than none.

And we'll see if the issue of kind of making things a little more.

You know, keeping pace wit inflation if that goes anywhere.

But interestingly, for a lot of renters, fingers crossed.

I'm sure, amongst many folks in that community.

NJ PBS spotlight reporter John Myers always thanks for your budget expertise, and you can read John's full report on this issue at NJ Spotlight news.org.

If you're a renter go check it out on that website.

That's going to do it for us tonight.

Thank you so much for joining us here at NJ PBS news.

Have a great night.

Jersey.