Sanctuary State Governor Mikie Sherrill Blasted After Fleeing Illegal Alien Hurts Mayor’s Wife

A nine month old boy died in a New Jersey parking lot after an illegal alien got behind the wheel.

Governor Mikie Sherrill kept her sanctuary policy in place anyway, and it just crashed into a local mayor's family.

Now an illegal alien fleeing ICE has New Jersey Republicans demanding Sherrill answer for her sanctuary law.

The Trust Directive Ties Local Police Hands Behind Their Backs

Wednesday afternoon on US-130 in North Brunswick, ICE agents tried to arrest an illegal alien during a targeted operation.

The illegal alien refused to get out of the car.

ICE says the man ignored officers' warnings, sped off, ran a red light and plowed into traffic on the highway.

One of those vehicles belonged to the wife of East Brunswick Mayor Brad Cohen.

She was hurt in the crash.

This is what New Jersey's "Trust Directive" produces.

Signed into law by Sherrill earlier this year, the directive bars local police from calling ICE when they encounter someone in the country illegally.

No phone call, no cooperation, no 287(g) partnership with federal agents.

State Senator Mike Testa didn't mince words about what that policy does to criminals crossing the border illegally.

"I think it has only emboldened illegal aliens to engage in illegal behavior," Testa said.

Assemblyman Paul Kanitra went further, tying this crash directly to a pattern Sherrill's government refuses to acknowledge.

"This is just the latest in a long line of traffic incidents and vehicular incidents that wouldn't occur if New Jersey didn't have our sanctuary status," Kanitra said.

He's right, and New Jersey's record proves it.

A Congresswoman Chose This Moment to Demand Abolishing ICE

Just weeks before the East Brunswick crash, an illegal alien named Maria Cobon-Guzman got behind the wheel of a car in a Jackson Township grocery store parking lot.

Cobon-Guzman had no valid license.

She had been released into the country without vetting after crossing the border illegally in 2023.

An immigration judge had already ordered her removed from the country in July.

She was still here in August, driving through a parking lot, when she struck a family and killed a nine month old boy.

His mother and five year old sister were hospitalized in stable condition.

Jackson Township Mayor Jennifer Kuhn said what every New Jersey police officer already knows.

"If our police pull somebody over and they're undocumented, they can't call the federal agencies, they can't call ICE," Kuhn said.

Sherrill had that warning in hand weeks before East Brunswick's mayor ever got the call about his wife, and she left the Trust Directive untouched.

Then, as a mayor's wife lay injured because of an ICE chase the sanctuary law helped cause, Democratic Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman posted her reaction online.

She didn't call for accountability from the illegal alien who fled.

She didn't call for tougher enforcement of New Jersey's roads.

She wrote: "Abolish ICE."

What This Pattern Tells You About Trenton

New Jersey Democrats have had a dead baby and an injured mayor's wife inside of a single summer, and their instinct is still to protect the agency chasing the alien, not the families getting hit.

That's not an accident – it's a pattern the Trust Directive was built to produce.

Every time local police are barred from picking up the phone, the job of catching illegal aliens who ignore the law falls entirely on ICE agents working alone in the field, forcing exactly the kind of high speed chases that just ended in East Brunswick.

Sherrill signed that policy knowing a nine month old was already dead because of it.

Now she's got a mayor from her own party whose wife just became the second data point, and a congresswoman from that same state demanding less enforcement instead of more.

Republicans in Trenton aren't backing down, and after this week, they don't have to make the case alone anymore.

Sources:

• Fox News, "Sherrill anti-ICE policy hammered after fleeing migrant driver injures Dem mayor's wife," Fox News, September 7, 2026.
• Fox News, "NJ mayor demands sanctuary policy rollback after baby killed in crash allegedly involving illegal immigrant," Fox News, August 2026.
• Just the News, "New Jersey Democrat governor blasted over anti-ICE policies after illegal alien injures mayor's wife," Just the News, September 7, 2026.
• RedState, "Mikie Sherrill's Sanctuary Policies Exposed As On-The-Run Illegal Alien Injures Dem Mayor's Wife," RedState, September 7, 2026.