>> From NJ PBS Studios, this is "NJ Spotlight News" with Brianna Vanozzi.

>> Hello, and thanks for joining us tonight.

I'm Joanna Gagis.

>> Good morning.

I'm Brianna Vannosi.

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But first, put the phone away or pay.

That's the title of a new campaign aimed at ending distracted driving on New Jersey roads.

It's part of April's National Distracted Driving Awareness Month, run here in the state by the Attorney General's Office and the Division of Highway Traffic Safety.

So what should you know?

Officers will be looking for anyone using a cell phone in any way, texting, calling, scrolling.

But that's not it.

Any distracted driving, whether it's drinking, eating, even adjusting your car controls, could get you a penalty.

Fines range from $200 to $800, depending on the number of offenses, and you could even get hit with insurance points.

They say the goal is to drive down some startling stats.

In 2024, 42% of crashes involved a distracted driver, resulting in 175 fatalities and 1,500 serious injuries.

The state's providing close to $1 million in grants to 126 municipal and county law enforcement agencies, as well as the New Jersey State Police, to enforce the campaign.

Coming up, Congressman Rob Menendez joins us to discuss the latest on calls for more oversight of immigration detention centers like Delaney Hall.

That's next.

Funding for NJ Spotlight News, provided by the members of the New Jersey Education Association.

Making public schools great for every child.

Democrats in Congress have been critical of the mass deportations of immigrants in the U.S.

saying that the Trump administration has gone far beyond its declared intention of locking up criminals, instead arresting and detaining people with no criminal record or risk.

On March 20th, a pastor named Yesen Cortez-Vasquez was detained.

He's a leader at the Gathering Place Church in Elizabeth, and his arrest has drawn criticism from congressional leaders, including Congressman Rob Menendez, who's visited Delaney Hall multiple times and recently attempted to see the pastor.

The congressman joins us now.

Thank you for being here.

Just tell us about your visit today to Delaney Hall.

Were you able to get in touch with the pastor?

Yeah, we were able to see him.

And his health is good.

He's in good spirits.

He's doing ministry in Delaney Hall with other detained individuals.

But he shouldn't be there.

And that's the thing that people need to understand.

There's no reason for him to be there.

He's an important member of the Elizabeth community.

He is a pastor who delivers to his congregation every week.

And this runs counter to what the president had sold the American people when he was a candidate and to start this administration.

So it's important for people to know the pastor's story.

So DHS says that this is a person who came into the country illegally in 2016, that he overstayed a tourist visa that same year.

and devil's advocate because he's a pastor.

Does that make him does that protect him from immigration enforcement in the country?

Well, he should be able to go through the legal process and the immigration process as he has been as so many people at Delaney Hall have many of the people at Delaney Hall right now are being apprehended at their required check ins with ice or at a court hearing.

That's what's happening, right?

These people are not being, you know, targeted criminals in our communities.

to go through the process and being prevented from doing so.

So it makes absolutely no sense.

Also, in terms of the rhetoric out of the administration about violent criminals, this is clearly not the case.

So he should be able to go through his immigration process, as should everyone else, without being held at Dulaney Hall.

What can you tell us about the conditions inside, for the pastor, but not just for the pastor, for others who you've connected with?

I mean, they're inhumane conditions.

And that's on multiple visits, seeing firsthand everything that's happening, and then talking with a number of the individuals being held there.

The ventilation system is defunct.

I mean, people complain about the air.

And you can't hide the fact that people are coughing.

People look ill.

People went in there healthy people, and they are getting sicker by being there.

The food continues to be an issue, and people are being malnourished.

We're hearing too that there are perhaps issues with the way that food is handled, not being refrigerated or heated properly.

It wouldn't surprise me.

And you have to remember the GEO group operates everything going on at Delaney Hall.

It is a for-profit enterprise.

So this leads to poor conditions, a lack of concern for these individuals.

One of the things that really bothers me in my prior visit on Tuesday with Congressman Norcross is there's about 800 detainees.

There are seven full-time health professionals.

So you're looking at over a 100 to 1 ratio of individuals to health professionals.

There's no way you can administer health care.

And remember, this is not criminal.

This is civil.

So none of these people, hardly any of them have any criminal record, yet they are being held in inhumane conditions without access to adequate medical treatment.

Many in the community are calling for him to be released because this is Holy Week, the week of Easter.

He is a pastor.

There were also some rumblings about him trying to get a Bible inside, and he wasn't allowed to.

DHS says that's absolutely false.

document.

Anyone can get any type of religious covering or item that they need.

Have you heard anything about that?

He should absolutely be released to not just be able to go back to his congregation but to go back to his family as so many individuals at Delaney Hall should be able to.

Yes, there was an issue with him getting his Bible.

That is true.

Again, you have to assume that everything DHS at a minimum has a significant amount of spin on it and more often than not it's just a complete lie.

So as we speak right now Congress is in a recess.

There was no deal to fund DHS.

In the meantime TSA workers were going unpaid.

The president issued an executive order to get them paid.

Should congressional representatives be getting a paycheck while federal workers are not?

I'm always happy to not be paid while there's federal workers who aren't being paid.

But also the Republicans, this is just the peak of their complete train wreck that they are as a party.

The Senate leader, Republican, passes this bill, no new funding for ICE, no new funding for CBP, goes to the House.

Republican leader there says this is a non-starter, they pass a continuing resolution to keep funding for DHS.

The Senate, again, Republican, says this is dead on arrival.

So you have the majority party who can't even coordinate efforts between the Senate and the House.

They are a complete disaster.

If you want to have a textbook example of how not to govern, look at the Republican Party under President Trump, Senator Thune, and Speaker Johnson.

What do you make of newly sworn in Secretary Mark Wayne Mullen saying that he will review all of these contracts that DHS has engaged in under former Secretary Christine Nome, including the Roxbury facility?

Does that signal to you that there could be a change in operations at ICE?

It's an important first step.

And these facilities and the contracts, given how ICE was osure and the fact that there were so many people who were just purchasing them, it was insane numbers that they were paying for the place in Roxbury and elsewhere.

It's an important first step.

I very much care about the people.

I care about our community members who are being ripped from their families, who are being ripped from our communities.

That's where the real work has to be done.

So is this an important first step in doing better than Kristi Noem did?

Sure.

The work is here with the people in our communities and starting to restore order and limit the harm that has been inflicted by this administration.

What do you make of Pam Bondi being fired today and being replaced by Todd Blanch who was President Trump's former criminal defense attorney?

Todd Blanch, also for the people in New Jersey to know, was the person who put the call in at Delaney Hall when they went to arrest Mayor Baraka.

So all the footage is now publicly available because they made this incredibly dumb decision to charge LaMonica.

But on the footage, you hear them say, the Deputy Attorney General just called me, and he wants us to go arrest Mayor Baraka.

So everything that happened that day, Mayor Baraka's arrest, everything that's happened since then, Todd Blanch.

So again, you're replacing terrible people with terrible people.

It doesn't make it any better.

And the real concerning thing is that he wants people even more loyal than Pam Bondi, even more loyal than Kristi Noem.

That is a terrible precedent to set for an administration where there should be independence, especially at the DOJ.

I have no confidence in Todd Blanch.

I have no confidence that he will show any independence to the president, and that is really detrimental to the American people and to our institutions.

Just going back to this partial government shutdown, obviously the recess is still going on.

Do you think a deal will be reached?

Are Democrats weighing in on either the Senate bill or the House bill to say, "Hey, we think this is the good way to go"?

What do you think this will look like when you get back?

So, I think what ultimately happens is the Senate bill that we could have passed when we were in D.C., which we were ready to pass, because again, no new money for ICE, no new money for CBP, which is important for Democrats as we negotiate the reforms that we've put to the White House.

That is going to be fine.

I think that will be passed into law, and all the other agencies within DHS will be funded.

The big challenge coming up is Reconciliation 2.0 that Republicans want to do, because that's where they're going to have a three-year funding for ICE and CBP.

They're going to do additional things, like they want to do Save America and that.

They're going to try to pack everything in there as a last-ditch effort to sort of push this harmful agenda one more time before Democrats win in November.

But that's going to be a real painful conversation for the American people, because Republicans cut a trillion dollars from health care in first reconciliation.

To offset all this spending that they want to do, they're going to go back and cut more health care from the American people.

It is absurd.

It is a complete disconnect from what the American people are shouting at all of us to do, which is deal with the affordability crisis, help us with our health care costs, and the Republicans are just doubling down on their failed policies.

You mentioned the Save America Act.

While that doesn't seem to be moving on Capitol Hill, the president issued this executive order to change the process for mail-in ballots.

Do you think that that's going to go anywhere?

Do you think that'll be stopped in the courts?

Absolutely.

It'll be stopped.

But you also have to.

This is a full on assault on our electoral system.

The same electoral system that elected Donald Trump, Republicans in the House, Republicans in the Senate.

Yet now it's completely broken and needs to be fixed by Donald Trump.

It's clear that they know their policies are failing the American people.

So they want to do everything possible to try to rig this election to give them one more opportunity to remain in control.

That's all this is about for them.

They are going to do mail-in ballots.

They are going to try to do postmarks on VBMs.

Right.

Are any of these things valid though?

Are any of these necessary?

They're not.

going to be able to do that.

If we're going to have a conversation about electoral reforms, let's do that.

But let's enhance people's ability to participate, not make it harder for people to participate.

I mean, that is the disconnect between the Trump administration, Republicans, and what we should be doing as Congress.

We should be enabling people to participate in our democracy, not making it harder.

But that's what they want to do because they know if we have free and fair elections, they will get absolutely smoked.

All right.

We have to leave it there.

Congressman Rob Menendez, thank you so much for being with us today.

Thanks so much.

Budget season is officially in full swing here in New Jersey as legislators in Trenton have begun holding public hearings to help decide where the money should go.

Governor Sherrill's outlined a $60.7 billion spending plan that includes nearly $2 billion in proposed reductions, everything from community programs to property tax relief for seniors.

the state is facing a $3 billion structural deficit.

To break down all the latest, I'm joined by our budget and finance writer, John Reitmeyer, as part of our Under the Dome series.

John, great to have you.

Just help us understand, now that the governor has proposed her budget, what part of the process are we in right now?

It's great to be with you today.

So where we are right now in this budget process is, there have been a number of public hearings that lawmakers have convened to take a closer look and really to hear from the public about the governor's budget proposal.

And now that those hearings have all been held, we're about to shift to a phase where we will see individual department heads from the executive branch, so the leaders of agencies like the Department of Transportation, Department of Health, and other executive branch divisions will be coming before members of the Senate and Assembly budget committees to go over the individual requests for their departments that help encompass the full budget as it comes together.

But before all of these hearings begin early next week, we will actually hear from the state treasurer who will come before the budget committees in both houses to go over in a little more detail what the governor outlined in the budget address last month.

There have been some documents that have been put forward for this proposed budget, but now we will see the treasurer come before lawmakers, kind of do a sales pitch for her proposal, and then also be available to take questions from lawmakers when they come forward.

Before we get into what we're likely to hear from those department heads and from the treasurer, what have we heard so far from community members, sometimes these are heads of organizations, community nonprofits, who receive state funding?

What have we heard so far?

Well, we've heard a lot of concern, because although this is a budget that calls for record spending, so that $60.7 billion figure you cited would set a record for the size of a state budget.

However, because there are certain things, and you made a reference to a structural imbalance in the budget, certain areas, the spending that is required goes up no matter what like the school aid law requires increased spending, funding public worker benefits like health benefits and pension.

So before any real policy changes are made, the state's on course to just spend more money.

The governor has tried to soften some of that increase by proposing a whole host of cuts to line items that are in the budget for the current fiscal year.

In some cases line items are being reduced.

In other cases they would be removed altogether if the governor gets her budget passed.

And so we've heard from numerous organizations nonprofits a lot of civic minded groups that do a lot of services in New Jersey receiving state in some cases federal but a lot of state money.

And it's that type of spending that is being trimmed by Governor Sherrill and her proposed budget.

And so we've heard from a lot of the different groups saying what they won't be able to do in the new fiscal year that begins July 1 under the cutbacks that Governor Sherrill is proposing.

How critical are legislators as they're talking with some of the department heads.

Of course this is a new administration.

A lot of these folks are new.

There are some who are carryovers.

But how critical does the legislature tend to be in those hearings.

It depends.

So as as you said this is a new administration.

A lot of new individuals are either coming to state government or maybe playing a different role than they've played in the past in state government or in some cases it's carrying over from the previous administration but of course the new governor has her own view of how things should be run.

And so lawmakers you know play an important role in the budget process.

They actually have the authority under the state constitution to draft the annual spending bill that becomes the state budget.

So the governor gets to propose a budget and these department heads get to say how they'd like to use the resources that would be allotted to their individual agencies to operate for the next fiscal year.

But lawmakers have to sign off on that when they send a budget back to the governor for final approval.

And so it's really a process of justifications.

So you'll see a lot of sharp questions to the department head saying explain to me perhaps why this area is going up or going down or why aren't you funding this particular thing that's important to people in my district.

And that's just sort of the give and take that will happen over the next several weeks in Trenton.

Part of that give and take is that this legislature has to contribute a major part of agreeing to approve this spending plan.

And one of the things that the governor said she wants to eliminate is what we call Christmas tree items or pork barrel spending.

These deals that are often made at the end of the budget process.

I asked Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin about it, said they tend to be backroom deals.

He pushed back and said that's preposterous.

Let me ask you a two-part question.

One, do you believe that she will be successful in getting legislators to agree to eliminate that process?

And do you think they share her concern for the need to cut spending?

That's a two-part question.

Yeah, I think it also goes back to the interview you did with the governor herself, where you asked her about the budget, and she suggested that there'd be a willingness to compromise, but with an eye on the bottom line.

And so, you know, it's hard to tell at this point in the process what's sort of a negotiation position and what's sort of going to be like a hard and fast line in the sand.

And so, two things can be true at once.

Like some of the funding for the different programs that we just heard a lot of testimony about during the public hearings, that has often been restored at the end of June.

However, at the same time, that's when lawmakers tend to put in funding for their own pet projects or the things that are far more parochial in nature, like line items for a specific park that would be used by really only residents of one community.

and yet state tax dollars would fund the operations or improvements to that park.

And so what will be interesting to see as we get closer to June is whether funding gets restored for some of these different civic-minded organizations and then not allocated at all to legislative pet projects or if there's some sort of blend or if the governor really does take a firm stand and says my budget is the budget you can go along with it or not.

And then we get to the end and find out if there could be a government shutdown.

We're a little ways away from that but thank you so much John Reitmeyer our budget and finance writer.

Appreciate it.

You're welcome.

In a packed race of candidates for Congressional District 12 one has pulled ahead of the pack at least when it comes to fundraising so far.

Dr.

Adam Hamowy is a surgeon and veteran who's among the 13 Democratic candidates running in the primary to replace Congresswoman Bonnie Watson-Coleman.

She's retiring at the end of the session.

Watson-Coleman is one of the more progressive representatives here in New Jersey and her district includes a mix of urban and suburban communities.

So why does Hamowy believe he's the best person to replace her?

He joins us now to tell us.

Welcome to the show Dr.

Hamawy.

Great to have you.

Thank you for inviting me.

It's great to be here.

Tell us why do you believe you are the best candidate for CD 12.

I am the best candidate because I won.

I grew up here.

I understand the district.

I work here every single day talking to the constituents talking to my patients and understanding that the problems that they have.

So I've as a physician I've seen the problems are having with health care their access to getting good insurance being able to afford it.

And and I'm one of them speaking up to this process.

I've served in the military.

I've served in Iraq.

I've also been to Gaza and I understand where we're spending our money with the wars overseas and the funding that we've we've been spending our money on.

And I feel that we should be spending our money on health care and not bombs.

And so this resonates with the people I'm running with.

I want to get into the health care bit.

But first I just have to ask the president gave an address to the nation last night giving an update on the war in Iran.

What did you hear in that speech in terms of whether or not the U.S.

should continue in its efforts.

He says that this is an investment in the future for our children and our grandchildren to keep America safe.

Do you agree.

I don't agree.

We are less safe today than we were a month ago.

And this is the same story that we've heard over and over again.

It's the same story with Iraq.

The same story with Afghanistan.

We heard about the WMDs and while we were in Iraq it was a joke.

Everyone knew that there was nothing there.

And what we ended up is spending blood and treasure.

And in the end we are actually less safe.

Same thing with Iran.

We've talked about the nuclear weapons.

They've attacked them.

Last year was supposed to have destroyed it.

And now we're talking about it again.

This is really an excuse to be funding our war profiteers and defense contractors who are only people benefiting from this.

And really we're following Israel's agenda and what AIPAC has been pushing with our Congress.

And it is not benefiting the people here at home.

So it's the same story and it's not going to help us.

AIPAC is a PAC that spent a lot of money in U.S.

elections, influencing at times which candidates get elected.

And I have to ask you, you have gotten the endorsements of a few pro-Palestinian PACs, Peace, Leadership and Accountability, as well as Justice Democrats.

As much as there is pushback about AIPAC and its impact on American elections, is having a pro-Palestinian PAC doing anything to actually take dark money out of politics, or is it just a different political viewpoint?

I think what we want is the politics to be for the people.

This is why I personally have made the commitment not to take any corporate PAC money, not to take any money from any corrupt special interests.

And this is what I ask all my opponents also to do as well.

This is the problem with our politics is that we have, you know, the people in Congress and the administration working for the oligarchs, working for the billionaires, working really not for everyone here at home that's working hard and trying to make a living for themselves.

There's a collective difference between the millions of Trump dollars that he's getting and supporting the genocide and people who want to invest in our communities and not on bombs abroad.

You talked about investing in health care and I have to ask if the voters sent you to Congress.

What do you believe are the steps that Congress should take to invest in our health care systems or to make reforms to our health care systems to bring down costs.

Well we're the richest country in the history of the world.

Rather than spending a trillion dollars on court on defense slash war we should be taking that money and spending it on fixing our health care system.

We need a universal health care system like Medicare for all.

We need to fix our education at least provide you know public college that is tuition free.

We need to fix our bridges and our infrastructures.

And if we take some of that trillions of dollars that we're using on wars and spend it here at home we wouldn't have these problems.

This is what Congress would be doing.

Congresswoman Bonnie Watson Coleman has been extremely critical.

One of the louder voices on Capitol Hill against the president's immigration policies.

What is your position on ice.

Do you believe ice should be abolished.

Should it be reformed.

Ice should be abolished.

You know, the whole reason of its formation that started 20 years ago was based on an attack for, you know, after 9/11, it was based on attacking Muslims and black and brown people.

It has done nothing to make America safer.

And what it has evolved in is a bunch of gangsters and stormtroopers that are masked, that are kidnapping and killing people in the streets.

And there's nothing that we could fix about it right now.

It needs to be abolished.

And we need to really dismantle the DHS and come up with a better system.

There's no reason we should have ICE, FEMA, the TSA all under one system when we're trying to block one, the entire, you know, transportation and flights and everything that we have here that runs this country falls apart.

Right now, if we have a storm and we have the DHS being with ICE, we're not going to be able to respond to it properly because of the funding issues.

So we need to look at this whole process, dismantle DHS, come up with a new immigration system that actually works.

It's based on civil rights, based on, you know, an orderly process where people could get into this country legally and not have to go through, you know, lottery systems or wait decades to be able to join their family members.

I have to ask you, we hear a lot of Republicans say, look, it's actually the sanctuary policies that are set by states and cities that create dangerous situations across our country, that there is no coordination between police, local police and federal officers.

Obviously, that's a state's policy issue.

But do you agree with that?

I think that's a false premise.

I mean, this is just the fear mongering that we have by the administration to be able to push their agenda through.

We, they're the ones who are, you know, attacking the citizens walking through the streets.

They're the ones kidnapping people in broad daylight as they drop their kids off at school.

It has nothing to do with states or the federal government.

It's about human rights.

It's about civil rights.

It's about the rule of law and it's about a constitution which right now is being shredded and lit on fire in front of our own eyes.

And no one is doing anything to try to stop it.

All right.

We have to leave it there.

But Dr.

Adam Hamawy surgeon veteran and candidate in the congressional district 12.

Thank you so much for your time today.

Thank you.

And that's going to do it for us for the entire team here at NJ Spotlight News.

I'm Joanna Gagis.

Thanks for being with us.

We'll see you right back here tomorrow.

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