♪ ♪ From NJ PBS Studios, this is "NJ Spotlight News" with Brianna Vannozzi.

Hello, and thanks for joining us on this Tuesday.

I'm Brianna Vannozzi.

Tonight, a few stories we'll get into later in the broadcast.

With the clock winding down, we'll tell you what lawmakers are doing to avert a federal government shutdown and the potential impact on New Jersey.

Then, advocates call for the state to divest from a company developing an immigration tracking software program.

How does it work and why is it sparking surveillance concerns?

And later, calls are growing for Democratic gubernatorial nominee Mikey Sherrill to release her naval records.

Will the controversy sway voters' minds as they begin casting ballots in the November election?

But first, a few of today's top headlines.

Attorney General Matt Plotkin is once again leading a lawsuit against the Trump administration.

This time over cuts to federal Homeland Security funding.

That the suit claims grant money is being pulled from certain states based on their refusal to follow the president's political agenda.

Now a coalition of 12 attorneys general argues the Department of Homeland Security and FEMA slashed the funds just days before the end of this fiscal year.

New Jersey's share was cut in half from about 19 million to just under 10 million, allegedly because the state doesn't let local police enforce federal immigration laws.

Platkin calls the move illegal and dangerous, warning it threatens efforts to prevent terrorism, fight cyber attacks and protect public safety.

A federal court has already ruled against tying funds to immigration enforcement.

The lawsuit now seeks a temporary restraining order to block the cuts.

Also tonight, more people could soon have their criminal records cleared after the state Supreme Court on Monday issued a consent order requiring the Essex County Prosecutor's Office to reduce its massive backlog of expungement requests.

Under state law, prosecutors are supposed to review expungement petitions within 60 days, but delays in Essex frequently stretch longer, leaving many in limbo.

The new agreement comes after a lawsuit from the state public defender's office and gives Essex County five months to significantly cut its backlog, which in February, by the way, made up a quarter of all pending expungement statewide.

By March 2026, the order requires no more than 20 percent of cases to be pending past that 60 day mark.

And it has to be maintained through at least 2027.

Officials say the move will make expungement the expungement process that is more fair and accessible, giving people a chance to move on from past mistakes without being trapped by red tape.

And the U.S.

Justice Department is taking legal action suing pro-Palestinian groups over a heated protest that happened outside a West Orange synagogue last November.

The civil suit is filed under what's known as the FACE Act, a law typically used to protect access to abortion clinics.

It accuses demonstrators of harassment, threats and even physical assaults that disrupted a religious memorial service.

The protest was sparked by a real estate event at the synagogue marketing homes in Israeli settlements.

Federal prosecutors allege demonstrators interfered with worshippers' civil rights.

But Essex County prosecutors have also charged two pro-Israel counter-protesters with biased intimidation and assault in a case that's still pending.

Organizers and individuals named in the lawsuit have declined to comment.

The case now moves forward in federal court with both sides claiming their civil rights were violated.

And coming up, a shutdown showdown.

Will federal lawmakers reach a deal?

We'll get the latest from Washington next.

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With just hours to go and no deal in sight, the nation is barreling toward a federal government shutdown.

One that advocates warn could be more damaging than any before it.

From food safety to environmental protections, experts warn the ripple effects could be swift and far-reaching.

And this time, there's a second crisis looming.

Tens of thousands of federal workers who could be permanently shut out.

Our Washington, D.C.

correspondent Ben Hulak joins us now for more on what happens if the clock runs out.

Ben, good to see you.

I know there's a lot happening there.

So, where do negotiations stand as of this afternoon?

They are standing at a stalemate.

There is -- there's essentially no movement, at least publicly that we're aware of, between the three key factions here.

That's the Senate and the House, both controlled by Republicans, and then, of course, the White House.

Maybe viewers are sick of me saying this, but for a spending bill to become law and keep the government open, all three of those bodies need to sign off on something.

There is no bill text at this point, and there -- it doesn't seem like there's a strong inkling that anything will happen today.

So when the clock strikes midnight, yes, we will tip into a government shutdown.

President Trump had a meeting yesterday with top Democratic leaders.

What, if anything, came out of that?

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, not a whole lot, at least not that we know publicly.

So Chuck Schumer, a Democrat from New York who leads the Democrats in the Senate, said that we're a large way apart from the president.

And that's that's really the status now.

The House is not technically in.

They are they're supposed to be back Friday.

And Democrats a few hours ago had a press conference sort of a PR event on the House steps pushing for health spending to be attached to some sort of spending deal.

In particular, they want funding for Medicaid and to extend ACA tax subsidies for people who are enrolled in the 2010 health care law known as Obamacare.

No matter what happens, those premiums are going to go up a lot.

We've covered that for the newsroom here in the new year, but that's the main point of leverage that Democrats want, and their primary ask.

Again, I feel like a broken record, as I keep saying, to get something through, the Democrats are using their leverage in the Senate in particular.

Things to clear the Senate have to hit 60 votes and Republicans only have 53 seats.

So where those seven votes emerge to shepherd some sort of deal through the Senate, that's the million-dollar question.

Well, let me stay on that because, right, Democrats have said that they're digging in their heels.

They're not going to move on this.

It's the only leverage, really, that they've had to this point.

What are the first and most visible effects of what this shutdown will do here in New Jersey and nationally?

For most people, you may not feel it right away.

Government agencies will be run by sort of skeleton staffs.

And I wrote a little bit about this in my piece this morning.

And I think it's a really important piece of the puzzle.

And I think it's a really important piece of the puzzle.

And I think it's a really important piece of the puzzle.

And I think it's a really important piece of the puzzle.

And I think it's a really important piece of the puzzle.

But a lot of things that can be held momentarily, think perhaps loans for a small business, those will be tapered back or held.

Every agency has to come up with its own plan for a government shutdown.

And the Congressional Budget Office just a few hours ago released some research estimating that about $400 million, that would be the cost per day of a government shutdown and roughly 750,000 federal workers would be furloughed.

Now, under federal law, those workers would be -- would receive back pay.

But that is a big portion of the federal government being let out the door.

And if a shutdown happens, it's of course not clear when those folks come back.

So things sort of grind to a halt.

What about the federal workers, some 150,000 that you write about, who would be dropped from the payroll entirely?

What is that?

Why is that happening now?

That is happening.

Those are folks who accepted what was described as a deferred designation process.

So these are people who were allowed to take essentially a buyout from the federal government from this Trump administration, receive some pay, and then look for jobs elsewhere.

So this just coincides with this February deadline, or this October deadline, say, of folks being pushed off the federal budget rolls.

That coincides with the federal budget as well.

So there will be a bunch of new people entering the labor market come Wednesday.

What about political consequences here, Ben, I'm thinking here at home with the governor's race and then obviously more long-term with the midterms, and how people are feeling about either the Trump administration's policies being in their favor, the way that they want the country to go, or where they want Democrats to step in.

Where are the political consequences falling?

There was just skimming some polling before we started talking here about who would shoulder the blame from a government shutdown.

And the blame would really be sort of equally felt.

At this point, it's sort of a PR match, a cat and mouse game between the parties about how they can shift blame to one another.

The fundamental fact, though, is Republicans do hold those three groups, those three key portions that would need to sign up on some sort of spending bill.

So both chambers and the presidency are in Republican hands.

The blame, realistically, as shutdowns play out, people don't feel it right away.

And these aren't typically issues that voters cast their ballots on in a midterm election or in the governor's race.

They are not really issues that permeate, because, of course, when the government reopens, this is an issue that people have forgotten about or at least let slide for the moment.

Very quickly, you mentioned that the House is not back in session.

How is that affecting negotiations and just the ability to get something done in a timely way?

Of course, people can, you know, members and staff are surely calling one another on an almost constant basis.

But yeah, the House is not here.

You need to be here to vote, to pass bills, to fund the government.

And if we do, if there is a deal that emerges, say today, tonight, tomorrow, the House will have to quickly come back to avoid a more lengthy shutdown.

But as I've said, it looks like we're sure on course for a shutdown come midnight.

- You can follow all of Ben's coverage on this as well as today's reporting on our website, njspotlightnews.org.

Ben, thanks so much, great work.

- Of course.

- Well, tensions are rising in Newark after hundreds of immigrants and advocates took to the streets Monday, demanding the state cut ties with Palantir, a tech company contracted by ICE to create immigrant tracking software.

The contract has sparked outrage with critics calling it a surveillance overreach, demanding New Jersey sell its shares in the firm.

But supporters argue the system will help target violent criminals amid ramped up enforcement As the backlash grows, it's putting pressure on Governor Murphy to respond.

Raven Santana reports.

Hundreds of immigrant families, labor organizers, and social justice advocates gathered in Military Park marching through downtown to protest what they call a growing expansion of government surveillance.

I just always remember my mom saying, "Mijita, no abra la puerta, don't open the door."

If someone's a knock, you don't open the door, you don't look out the window.

And unfortunately, you know, that fear went away.

But now it's happening every single day for members.

They're afraid to drop off their children at schools.

They're afraid to go to membership meetings, to our own meetings.

We are seeing members being afraid because they just don't know when ICE is going to come and raid any kind of open public space.

At the center of the outrage is a new high-tech federal data system known as Immigration OS, developed by U.S.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement by Palantir Technologies under a $30 million contract.

According to Palantir's contract with ICE, the technology has three key functions.

Track self-deportations in real time, limit time and resources needed for removals, target transnational gangs, violent criminals, and visa overstays.

Anyone that has a public record, so for me specifically, even though I am an American citizen, I still was an immigrant and I had a visa, so in the system I'm registered as an immigrant.

So what they're going to do is going to go after everyone that had a visa.

Whether or not you did something wrong, they're going to pursue you and target you for having a visa.

I think these are definitely members that are going to be targeted, but they are also just the people that keep our country thriving, and so if those folks are in fear, then what's going to happen to the rest of us when we go into our office towers, into our buildings?

Those workers are not going to be there out of fear of what's actually happening.

"Out of here!

Out of here!

Jersey doesn't want you here!"

Protesters warned this system could turbocharge deportations nationwide, just as New Jersey heads into a high-stakes governor's race.

"An important point.

We're here in the city of Newark, because here in Newark is where the first immigration raid happened under the second Trump administration.

And just a couple of months ago, our mayor, Mayor Ozbaraka, was arrested.

And a few weeks later, Congressman Lamonica McIver was arrested by ICE.

And so this country is -- this city has a harsh, very recent history with immigration.

And so we need to make sure that we -- that our candidates, both gubernatorial candidates, are talking about what is our plan to make sure that we're keeping one of the largest immigrant states in the entire country safe.

Organizers and advocates I spoke with are now demanding that state lawmakers pull from state investments for Palantir and block ImmigrationOS data from being used by local and state police.

And there's another point of contention.

New Jersey's public pension fund, which includes retirement savings from teachers, firefighters and municipal workers, currently holds stock in Palantir.

that means residents may be unknowingly invested in the same technology they're protesting.

We should not support the deployment of this surveillance and this kind of technology with our tax dollars, with our pension fund.

Justicias!

Justicias!

We reached out to the State Department of Treasury, which oversees the state's pension system.

They had no comment.

ICE did not respond.

For NJspotlight News, I'm Raven Santana.

The state's candidates for lieutenant governor are meeting tonight in their only debate, taking place at Kean University between Democrat Dale Caldwell and Republican James Gannon in a race that, at least according to the latest polling, is in a dead heat.

That's pushed the campaigns into a sharply personal phase, now centered on Democratic nominee Congresswoman Mikey Sherrill's military records and a decades-old cheating scandal at the Naval Academy.

Now, both sides are trading accusations and calls are mounting for Sherrill to release her full personnel files.

Our senior political correspondent, David Cruz, joins us for the latest and what effect, if any, it will have on voters.

David.

Hey, Brianna, you know, Republicans want voters to relate to this story as a cheating scandal.

Democrats want voters to remember it as a frightening invasion of privacy on a Navy veteran.

Last week, Mikey Sherrill, mostly her mostly unredacted military records were released by the National Archives to an ally of Jack Cittarelli, including personal information like her social security number.

That release came as news also broke that Sherrill wasn't permitted to walk with her graduating class at the Naval Academy because she refused to turn in classmates she knew cheated on a final exam.

So with just weeks to go now before election day, it's been hard to miss the story which started on NJ Globe and exploded across cable news networks with both candidates taking to their most favorite cable news shows and flooding social media with charges and countercharges.

They should have required any number of wickets to be gone through to release this, including my signature, including my social security number, including release by the Department of Navy.

Those among others were not met at all.

And this low-level technician who got this call released all these documents.

And speaking to people who formerly worked at the National Archives, other people are familiar with this, they thought it was pretty breathtaking that this happened.

They'd never seen anything like it.

She's trying like hell to obfuscate, Sean, but there's no obfuscating what we now know.

She was not allowed to walk.

And you asked the simple question, why wasn't she allowed She can clear this all up by approving the release of her disciplinary records, but she won't.

Which begs more questions than it answers.

Listen, she disqualified herself last week with that debate performance.

Today is another disqualifier with this revelation.

I think an ad, I would expect an ad, release the records, is probably coming to New Jersey television any day soon.

Mikey Sherrill has made her military service as a Navy helicopter pilot part of her campaign.

But now the Democrat is reacting after it was uncovered that she was caught up in a cheating scandal.

And now Democratic nominee Mikey Sherrill is having to defend her record at Annapolis The Trump administration illegally releasing respected Navy helicopter pilot Mikey Sherrill's private military records to Jack Cittarelli's campaign.

Records containing Mikey's social security number, even her retired parents' home address.

Jack's campaign distributed her records anyway, breaking the law.

Even now that they're caught, Cittarelli refused to return them.

Despicable.

Lots of outrage from both camps over the last few days.

The cheating scandal they're all talking about dates back to the early 90s when some cadet got a copy of and distributed to hundreds of other cadets what they call the EE, the Electrical Engineering exam.

That's a big final exam.

Ultimately, 24 cadets were expelled as part of the scandal.

Cheryl, who had refused to give up any classmates, was forbidden from walking with her class.

The details, such as they are of the scandal, may be unique, but the idea of a late campaign revelation about your opponent is not new.

October surprises go back to the 1840s.

October surprises are usually coincidental.

You know, we make a big deal out of it and kind of the media narrative that, oh, this shocking moment days or weeks away from the campaign is, you know, an October surprise.

You know, this is our September surprise, I guess, but it really has implications for both sides.

And while we don't know systematically, quantitatively, what effect this may have on voters, you know, it seems like with much else going on in the world, this will come down clearly to partisan lines.

I think it's pretty thin gruel, quite honestly.

And I don't know if it was meant to be a campaign-ending, campaign-shattering event, because, really, there are a lot of blanks.

There's a lot we don't know.

And when the Ciccarelli campaign broke it or took it to reporters, they didn't have a lot of the information, and they're trying to put it back on the reporters to find it out or for Mikey Sherrill to fill in.

Well, that's not really how it works.

When you want to level a charge, you make the charge, and they just don't have it.

They don't know what it is.

They don't have any evidence that it's not as she says it is.

And so round and round we go.

But what I don't think is that for most voters, this is the kind of thing that changes your perception of a candidate or turns you off to a candidate.

In fact, I think Mikey Sherrill got a little bit of the best of the deal.

So where does it all stand right now?

Well, each side has warned the other about pending legal action.

Republicans want Sherrold to release disciplinary records, and they're making a lot about the fact that Sherrold's husband, Jason Hedberg, a fellow cadet, was a plaintiff in a lawsuit stemming from the scandal, which ended up being dismissed with no action taken against Hedberg, meaning he was able to walk with his class on graduation day.

Is there something in these disciplinary records?

The honest answer is that we don't know.

But sources familiar with these types of hearings tell us that the records could simply include language like brought dishonor to or failed to meet XYZ high standard.

And words like that are irresistible fodder for campaign attack ads, especially as we head into the final weeks when, Brianna, as you know, hundreds of ads will already be flooding our feeds.

Yeah, that is true.

David, based on your conversations, how likely is it that the Sheryl campaign will release those records?

We're seeing mounting calls for it from really both sides of the aisle.

Yeah, I think that the answer is that it's very unlikely.

A, because you don't want the other guy to tell you what to do, and you don't want to do what the other guy says.

And then also, there is really nothing to be gained from acquiescing to that request, because as I said in the piece here, some of the language that's included in there could be used as campaign fodder, even if the crime itself was not that big a deal.

All right, David Cruz for us.

David, great reporting as always.

Thanks so much.

Thanks, Brie.

In our Spotlight on Business report tonight, the Jersey Shore's Eatontown could receive a massive payout, $47 million to be exact, under a new tax agreement with Netflix.

Eatontown's mayor announced last week that Netflix applied for a payment in lieu of taxes program otherwise known as PILOT, which means that in addition to this initial payout, the borough stands to receive annual payments over the next 30 years.

The streaming service recently secured final planning approvals for its studio campus at the former Army base Fort Monmouth, and the Hollywood-style complex is expected to bring in significant economic growth to the region.

The borough plans to review the tax agreement during a council meeting on October 8th with construction slated to begin next year.

Support for the business report is provided by the Newark Alliance presents the 2025 Halsey Fest featuring the vibrancy of Newark's arts and education district and Halsey Street.

Halsey, a neighborhood built on hustle and heart.

The 2025 Halsey Fest The Halsey Fest is available at HalseyNWK.com.

That's going to do it for us tonight.

But a reminder, you can download our podcast wherever you listen and watch us anytime by subscribing to the NJ Spotlight News YouTube channel.

You can always follow us on Instagram and Blue Sky to stay up to date on all the state's big headlines.

And with Election Day just around the corner, check out our voter guide to get up to speed on the candidates and the races on the ballot this year.

Head to the NJ Decides 2025 tab on our homepage.

I'm Brianna Vannozzi.

For the entire team at NJ Spotlight News, thanks for being with us.

We'll see you right back here tomorrow.

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