>> From NJ PBS studios, this is NJ Spotlight News with Brianna Vannozzi.

>> Hello and thanks for joining us tonight.

Later in the broadcast, the contract is up for the Elizabeth detention center.

We'll get you the latest on the renewal process.

Plus, the fight rages over who should control the land at liberty state park.

We talked to one senator fighting to preserve it.

And later, could your beach house have to be raised even higher?

We'll look at the controversy over the new real rules governing flood-prone areas.

But first, a New Jersey woman has been released from ICE custody after spending one year >> Good morning.

I'm Delaney Howell.

We're in the middle of a pandemic.

A woman was arrested in Newark Columbia university while protesting the war in Gaza in 2024.

The charges against her were later dropped but Cordia was arrested last year during a check-in with Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Newark.

She was detained and flown to the Prairieland Detention Center near Dallas, where she's been in custody since March of last year.

While there, she suffered a seizure and was hospitalized.

Federal officials accused Cordia of overstaying her visa and questioned payments she sent to relatives in the Middle East, which she said were meant to help family members suffering during the war.

Cordia was among several people arrested in the Trump administration's crackdown on non-citizens who protested Israel's military actions in Gaza.

She says she joined the protest at Columbia after Israeli strikes killed several of her relatives in Gaza.

Cordia is from the West Bank and has lived in the United States since 2016 with her mother, who is a U.S.

citizen.

Rutgers New Brunswick gave layoff notices to at least 37 part-time adjunct professors who teach a total of about 100 classes in the School of Arts and Sciences.

Now many of them are long-time employees who will not be reappointed in the fall semester.

The move has drawn backlash from the Rutgers adjunct faculty union that said that school officials are blaming the layoffs on a lack of funding and no continuing need for the positions.

But the union reps are critical of that response, saying that Rutgers is quote, among the most financially healthy institutions in New Jersey, citing recent budget surpluses, enrollment growth and tuition increases.

Well, in spite of those numbers, Rutgers athletics has raked up a 78 million dollar deficit in fiscal year 2025 and a total 516 million dollar deficit since 2014.

Now, adjunct professors make up about 1% of the overall school budget and the union says savings could be found in other places.

They say Rutgers has an obligation to offer a robust, well-rounded curriculum and needs to prioritize its academic mission.

In a statement, Rutgers said it is deeply committed to providing students with a high-quality education that includes access to courses across its academic programs.

Coming up, we'll have more on ICE detention centers in New Jersey with our Washington, D.C.

correspondent Ben Hulak.

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.

And RWJBarnabas Health.

Let's be healthy together.

- Many people in New Jersey have been talking about the detention center that's being planned for Roxbury, and of course, Newark's Delaney Hall has been in the spotlight since the arrest of Mayor Ras Baraka last year.

But now, the Elizabeth Detention Center is taking center stage as the Department of Homeland Security is planning to extend the contract for its private operator, CoreCivic.

That contract expires at the end of the month.

Our Washington, D.C.

correspondent Ben Hulak has been looking into what comes next for the facility.

Ben, great to have you with us.

What is the process typically for these types of contract renewals.

These contracts that are on the books are typically kicked on the road and just renewed for months at a time.

In reporting about this facility I was reading some contracts that date back to the George W. Bush administration for this Elizabeth detention center.

And it's been renewed periodically months at a time years at a time just sort of piecemeal passed along.

So this is pretty routine at this point.

Is that because it is bypassing some larger type of contract negotiation or would there be a role that Congress perhaps would have to play in those negotiations.

There could be a role for Congress to play.

Effectively the private prison industry in America is dominated by two operators.

That's Core Civic which runs the Elizabeth Detention Center and Geo Group which runs Delaney Hall up in Newark.

And they just have basically an iron grip on the industry.

They're politically connected and quite powerful forces on their own.

You looked into some of the politics behind this and some of the campaign donations that were made and and just kind of lay out for us what you see as the way that the Trump administration has handled and really related with these private for for profit detention facilities.

If we know as a public anything about Donald Trump the president we know he loves flattery and pomp and circumstance.

And a lot of corporations made very savvy donations to his presidential inauguration committee for for this presidential term.

What amounts are we talking about Ben.

Right.

So these are these are not something that you and I can can reach into our bank account and cut a check for.

We're talking millions of dollars.

So CoreCivic and GeoGroup both donated half a million dollars to the inauguration fund.

And of course they also give annual contributions to members of Congress.

Typically those those contributions especially in the Trump era have have gone towards Republicans Democrats for that for them.

This is these are donations they shy away from mightily.

But that's that's where the lay of the land that wasn't always the case.

Deportations have really come under the public eye and come under scrutiny under the Trump administration.

But if we think back to the Obama years there were a lot of immigration groups.

They called former President Obama the deporter in chief.

So this is an issue that sort of simmered for a while and then exploded really under the Trump administration.

Sure.

There's bipartisan as you point out.

There's some history here in New Jersey under the Murphy administration in 2021.

The state passed a law attempting to ban private detention facilities here in the state from contracting with the federal government.

CoreCivic was tied up in a lawsuit.

Explain what happened there.

Right.

This was a big deal last summer.

CoreCivic won on appeal.

Federal appeals court in for the third district which covers New Jersey decided two to one that it is only the U.S.

government that has the right to determine basically to set federal immigration laws and not states such as New Jersey.

So that was a basically green light for companies like CoreCivic and GeoThreat to expand ICE detention centers in New Jersey and in other states.

And New Jersey wasn't alone as a state body in trying to ban these private prison firms from operating in their states or at least expanding.

This was a significant rollback to any efforts to curtail the broad deportation apparatus that Trump administration is building.

What can you tell us about how many people right now are in the Elizabeth detention facility.

How many does it hold.

What do we know about conditions there.

We don't know a ton about conditions as we've talked about before.

These are hard facilities to sort of people to get a look inside the capacity for Elizabeth Elizabeth to about 300 people.

So that is about a third the size of Delaney Hall and also much smaller than a lot of immigration detention sites out west in large states like California and Texas and a fraction of what the the Trump administration has said it wants to build in the state of Texas.

>> And there's a lot of people who are interested in the >> I'm not sure if you're talking about the site.

>> I'm talking about the site.

anywhere between 1 and 3,000.

So this is really a far smaller site.

But it's been operating for much longer.

And Delaney hall was a big build-out under the Trump administration to reopen that site that had been closed for years.

But this is something that that members of Congress are still debating as we speak.

There is no funding bill for the Department of Homeland Security except for ice.

And under this under this Congress there is forty five billion as some viewers may know set aside to build more sites like Elizabeth.

Yeah.

And maybe.

Yeah.

You took the words out of my mouth.

Of course we're having this conversation as we see TSA lines growing more and more TSA workers not showing up to work because as you said that DHS funding bill has not passed.

But Ben you lack.

Thank you as always for the insight from Washington D.C.

for us.

My pleasure.

A year's long battle is coming to a head in Hudson County's largest green space, Liberty State Park, where environmental advocates have been pushing to ban private development projects for years.

A bill is once again working its way through the legislature that would codify those protections into law and environmentalists say the timing is critical as the state is just steps away from finalizing a lease for a private marina on the Liberty State Park grounds.

While Senator Raj Mukerji is a longtime advocate for the park's preservation.

And he joins us now as part of our Under the Dome series.

Senator so great to have you with us.

So this bill is called the Liberty State Park Protection Act.

It moved out of the Senate Environment and Energy and excuse me Environment and Energy Committee.

What does this bill do.

So this bill codifies into law once and for all the protections that should be enshrined which is that state parks are the people's land.

They belong to the people.

And that projects that that would propose to commercialize or privatize the park or erode encroach upon the people's right to a free and open urban green oasis which is to me what Liberty State Park is would no longer be permissible.

We've seen bad idea after bad idea that would encroach upon the people's park.

And enough is enough.

Former D.P.

commissioner Sean Lott to read had made the case for this privatization this dry boat this dry excuse me boat storage dock coming in saying that it would help to fund some of the repairs I guess needed at Liberty State Park.

Can you just give us a little bit of the history as you understand it in terms of what this marina would do if it came in and kind of how we got to where we are right now.

Door and it's been private golf course holes for the neighboring property.

There's been motor cross raceways.

There's been lots of projects proposed over the years.

The latest is a massive boat storage warehouse which extends far beyond what federal park officials had originally condoned for that site.

But the point is that there should be public input and the will of the people shouldn't be encroached upon when it comes to a state park.

And so I think that's what's really driving this.

We really want to get this passed before Flag Day because in June Liberty State Park will turn 50 years old.

And we want to make sure that she gets another 50 and another 50 years after that.

This project is just the latest in a long line of ideas that would encroach upon the people's free use of one of only two places in the world you can access Ellis Island and Lady Liberty from, and a keeper of our country's history that has guided generations of Americans and others who've come to visit.

It's a very, very sacred place.

I think it's a national treasure, and it's certainly the crown jewel of our state park system.

If we allow Liberty State Park to be encroached upon, what's next?

Can you imagine if they tried to take away one square inch of Central Park for private use?

>> I think it's a very important bill.

the state legislature.

We want to codify the same protections in the state law into New Jersey.

>> Senator, let me ask you this.

This is the fifth time that this bill has been introduced starting in 2019.

It's worked its way through the legislature to varying degrees.

Why, then, hasn't this bill actually passed, actually become law?

There have been lots of powerful lobbyists and there's been opposition to it over the years, but I think that the people have spoken clearly and there's this urgency because of Flag Day and America's 250th.

And I don't know that the people are going to be patient for much longer.

And I trust our policy makers and leadership to see this through to enactment and put this to bed once and for all.

There also happens to be a group of eight environmentalist organizations that have brought a lawsuit against the state really for, as far as they've come in the approval process, this still needs final approval from the DEP, which now has a new commissioner.

That new commissioner is Ed Potosnack, who is formerly with the League of Conservation Voters one of the organizations suing to block this move.

So let me ask you this.

Is this a different Cheryl administration with different decision makers who could block the privacy privatization effort.

Well.

I. We're continuing to we're continuing to make the case.

We're pressing for the outcome that the community wants.

And you know I can't I can't speak.

I can't speak for the D.P.

but I am optimistic that they will hear our case and they will listen to the community.

Fair enough.

I want to switch gears quickly and just ask you about Heights University Hospital which did close its doors on Saturday.

You've loudly called for the for that emergency department to stay open.

What do you make of the move and the state's response.

The Sherrill administration called it illegal.

Right.

And I agree with them.

Look the fact is that the community was promised that the emergency department would be kept open even when the acute care hospital side of things was closed.

Also unlawfully by the way the CN process wasn't followed.

And this is an illegal closure.

It's gonna put people in harm's way.

And we're under bedded as a community.

We're one of the most densely populated counties in the country.

Jersey City, population 300,000, is an economic engine of the state.

And now if you're gonna be delayed 20 vital minutes to get emergency care when you need a thrombectomy if you've had a stroke or certain other situations, that's the difference between life or death.

That's why we have a CN process.

That's why we have a regulatory process that's supposed to be followed when you're going to close a critical facility like a safety net hospital.

Also, shame on the state over the years for sucking the life out of our safety net hospitals by depriving them of the support they need to be kept open when we have a disproportionate number of Medicaid patients, of indigent patients, of charity care patients, you know, until we get to the point where every American has access to health care, which should be a human right, we need to support our safety net hospitals.

They're not going to survive on their own.

So is the answer then, is it state aid?

Is it, is it more, because what is the answer then if the operator says that they were losing, I think some $70 million last year alone, are you asking for the state to step in and subsidize that?

As it relates to the acute care hospital, the state should have subsidized it further, which would have helped Christ Hospital stay open as an acute care hospital.

As it relates to this most recent closure, illegal closure of the emergency room, the hospital system committed to keeping it open.

They have reneged on that commitment and they have not followed the process that they're required to follow in order to effectuate an orderly closure.

So that's it's it's illegal and the people in our community and patients are going to suffer as a result.

And by the way, people will die as a result of of this unlawful action.

All right.

We have to leave it there.

But Senator Raj Mukerji, thank you so much.

Thank you always.

Almost two thirds of our state's coastline is at high or very high risk of coastal erosion and nearly all of it is at risk of sea level rise.

That's according to the State Department of Environmental Protection that adopted new rules for redevelopment One of its core requirements is that any new and rehabbed structures have to be built four feet higher than FEMA's flood projection levels.

Here to discuss that further is Republican Assemblyman Paul Knitra and Manusquan Mayor Mike Mangan.

Welcome to the show both of you.

These real rules have allowed you both to cross the political divide and come together.

Mayor you are a Democrat.

Assemblyman you are a Republican.

What is it that you don't like about these rules.

Mayor I'm going to start with you.

Well I think the most important thing to know about these rules is that they're not necessary.

New Jersey is going above and beyond what FEMA has called for in its projections.

And the impacts of this are devastating.

And Manusquan believes along with a lot of other shore communities that there's a better way to deal with coastal resilience.

You know I lived in Manusquan my whole life.

I grew up.

I see what happens when the ocean comes up.

I know what flooding can do firsthand.

But this proposal is not the right answer to this question.

It puts a huge onerous on the back of homeowners.

It wildly disrupts planning for building and in the end doesn't achieve the goal that we're looking to achieve which is to increase coastal resilience.

So you know for a whole lot of reasons myself and a lot of other local mayors are proposing other ideas different ways to look at this problem.

Really asking the state of New Jersey to take another look at what it's doing because this will have devastating impacts to not just Manus one but all communities up and down the coastline as well as any towns or long rivers as well.

So some broad broad problem.

Assemblyman you actually put out an Instagram video together talking about some of the impacts that communities would feel from this.

The mayor says we don't need this because we already have existing state rules.

This came from the Department of Environmental Protection that said whatever the rules are we need to go four feet higher given the amount of sea level rise we expect to see.

But what's the impact that you believe this will have that would be negative.

Look, the reality of the situation is the DEP believes that they need to go higher.

We all were here.

The mayor lives just about a bike ride away from me in Point Pleasant Beach, you know, where I've been my entire life.

We were all here for Sandy.

We were here for other storms.

The levels that these houses are getting proposed to get built to simply is not realistic.

The data is not showing that.

And we're on very small lot sizes here, too.

It's almost impossible to accomplish what they're looking for.

If you saw the video that we put out on social media, which was the mayor's family's house, it's already 16 to 20 steps in some regards to get in the front door.

That's not even taking into account if you need a wheelchair ramp, which is physically impossible on a 50-by-100-foot lot.

What we think is happening here is simply ideology is superseding common sense.

Let me ask you this, Assemblyman, because you say that it's four feet higher than what the requirement already is.

It's actually hard to figure out what the FEMA requirements are, right?

It's the base flood elevation for your region.

Can you tell me what the average is in Point Pleasant, where you were formerly the mayor?

It depends on which side of the tracks that you're on.

I just wound up redoing my house, and I can tell you that I have 18 steps to the front door.

We are about six additional feet over what we need to be.

And I think an important component of this that we need to tackle is how many new areas are going into flood zones, and how many new people now have to worry about this calculation.

Manasquan's a perfect example.

I think right now the mayor's only got maybe a seventh or an eighth of his town in a flood zone.

A third of Manasquan is going to be in a flood zone when this comes through.

I have towns like Lavalette and Bayhead and Maniloking where almost 100 percent of those towns are now going to be in flood zones.

And it doesn't just affect the shore.

You go inland where you're looking at rivers and lakes and people that are living five, six, seven blocks away and have never even thought that they're in a flood zone.

Now we're going to have to deal with the restrictions put on this as well.

So mayor let me ask you this.

Do you dispute the sea level rise that DEP says New Jersey towns will face or is it that you think raising houses isn't the answer or is it both.

Where do you stand on this.

It's actually a little bit of both.

I mean we know that sea level sea level rise is a real thing.

I've seen that over the course of my lifetime.

But the reality is in FEMA is looking at the data now.

We have not seen the acceleration in the rate of sea level rise that was originally predicted.

So we're not seeing it rise at a faster rate.

And to be fair he did scale that back right.

Because D.C.

D.P.

said originally it'd be five feet.

Then they said hey actually it has slowed.

Now the recommendation is four feet.

You dispute the four feet.

It's not the four feet.

It's the fact that the acceleration is slow.

That's why they lowered it.

And so the argument that I'm making is if they wait another year or two when this data is actually collected which is when FEMA is going to be looking at these maps again.

There's a lot of people in the community myself included believe that that rate of acceleration is not going to change that actually did the maps that we have now may be good for another couple of decades.

But FEMA is going to make that determination.

And that's the crux of the argument here is that we don't think the state of New Jersey is it should be out in front of something that is clearly going to be affecting the entire country at some point.

But I just want to get back to the other point because I think it's not it's not just about the fact that the sea level rise because we I do believe that's real.

I do believe it's happening.

But it's about the fact that we have completely unaddressed our public infrastructure in this conversation.

I've talked about this before.

This rule goes exclusively to private homes.

It exempts governments for roads curbs and sidewalks.

Now Manusquan has a plan to address those to raise those elements out of the water.

But the problem, one of the major problems with this policy is I don't care if a house is already raised or if it's on grade level.

If you raise it to deal with flood waters but the road out front is still covered in water you can't get in and out of that building it doesn't matter.

So we believe in Manus one a bunch of other mayors believe that the state has to take a pivot here and and start talking about public infrastructure.

Because as we've seen over the years private infrastructure has been raised in accordance with FEMA maps and we'll keep doing that.

So if the rate of sea level change or sea level rise does change FEMA will capture that in its maps and New Jersey like every other state will be subject to that.

What we're objecting to is New Jersey going out on its own to make these maps more aggressive on what I will say is questionable or let's say ever changing science at the moment.

And what we're talking about is the rate of rise.

Yeah.

So as these things continue to change we just don't think that we should be putting New Jersey homeowners on the front lines of a conversation that is nowhere near settled.

And just quickly Assemblyman process here you are supportive of a bill.

It's SCR to continuing resolution proposed by Senate President Nick Scatari that really says the legislature could step in here based on their constitutional authority to undo these DEP rules.

Do you believe that bill will pass?

You support that bill, yes?

Of course I support that bill and I can tell you that the bipartisanship in terms of support for that bill is continuing to grow.

We just had a resolution from the entire Ocean County Mayors Association.

That's every mayor in Ocean County who is looking for either a pause from the DEP or passage of that bill to get us where we need to be.

Because while you certainly can debate the science, even though the data shows that sea level rise is only millimeters a year, and the study that they used for this has been since.

Common sense prevails in the mayor's arguments about FEMA and waiting for the federal government to do their thing is the most salient point of all.

All right.

We've got to leave it there.

But Mayor Mike Mangan Assemblyman Paul Kinnitra thank you both for coming on.

Appreciate your time.

Thanks for having us.

Thank you.

Well that's going to do it for us tonight.

I'm Joanna Gagas for the entire team here at NJ Spotlight News.

Thanks for being with us.

We'll see you right back here tomorrow.

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