Mount Laurel Mayor Stephen Steglik shared a statement at a Feb. 2 council meeting that addressed the country’s ongoing federal immigration enforcement and abuse of power.
“This is my own words, this is not the opinions of anybody else,” he noted.
“Across the country, people are reacting to what many view as dangerous abuse of power by federal immigration enforcement,” the mayor added. “When enforcement tactics escalate into excessive force inflicting official accounts, violations of civil liberties and the collapse of public trust … public safety is put at risk.
“That is not law enforcement,” Steglik noted. “That is a failure of leadership in oversight. No government agency at any level should operate above the law or beyond meaningful scrutiny. As elected leaders, our obligation is to demand real transparency and consequences when authority is misused, anything else is complicity.
“Simply put, we can have an immigration policy that upholds human dignity, constitutional rights and basic decency without cruelty and death,” he added. “We must strengthen safeguards against abuses of power and confront head on how immigration policy is being enforced in this country.”
