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

>> Hello and thanks for joining us tonight.

I'm Joanna Gaggis.

Brianna Vannozzi is off.

A few stories we'll get into later in the broadcast.

We talk with Hoboken Mayor Emily Jabbour about her city's response to this weekend's ice raids.

Then, pushing back, New Jersey and New York officials sue the federal government for freezing the Gateway Tunnel project funds just days before the work will have to come to an end.

And a massive blood donation shortage.

State officials are asking residents to donate blood before the supply runs out.

We'll get you the latest.

>>> A few of today's top headlines, a new development in the gateway tunnel funding controversy.

The gateway development commission filed a lawsuit today against the federal government for freezing the Hudson tunnel project funds.

The suit calls the freeze unlawful because Congress has already appropriated the funds and despite their contractual obligation, the suit points out that the Trump administration has frozen the funds since the beginning of October.

Now, work on the project has already begun winding down and without the release of additional capital, the project will have to stop completely on Friday.

That's after the Gateway Development Commission says it's already used all financial sources and credit possible.

A work stoppage would mean the loss of around 1,000 jobs and already more than $1 billion has been invested into the tunnel's total $16 billion cost.

News of the lawsuit has many lawmakers speaking out, from New Jersey and New York.

Governor Mikey Sherrill said this morning she's already communicated to President Trump how important the project is to the region's economy and calls his actions illegal.

New York Governor Kathy Hochul calls it a "brazen act of political retribution, putting thousands of union jobs and billions of dollars in economic benefits at risk."

And Congressman Josh Gottheimer said he'll do everything he can to work constructively with Republicans and the White House to solve the stalemate.

We'll have more on this story later in the broadcast.

And New Jersey State Senator Joe Vitale is calling for a full and complete investigation into the allegations made against President Trump that were recently released in the Epstein files.

The documents include more than 3,000 mentions of Trump's name and include one accusation by a woman who says a friend told her she was forced to perform a sex act on President Trump in New Jersey 35 years ago when she was 13 or 14.

Another account details accusations from a woman referred to as Jane Doe who says she was raped by Trump and Jeffrey Epstein and threatened that if she told anyone, she would be "disappeared."

That case mirrors a lawsuit brought against Trump that was later dropped.

The claims haven't been substantiated, and the president reacted to the release of the files by saying they "absolve him."

But Vitale said in a statement, "He needs to be investigated for the rape and abuse of children, and until that happens, we are not protecting children, we are not trusting victims and we are failing future generations."

Also mentioned in the 3.5 million plus page file was New York Giants co-owner Steve Tisch, who exchanged numerous emails with Epstein about women Epstein was providing to him, asking if they were "working girls, pros, or civilians."

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has said he'll look into the matter.

And former Rutgers professor Robert Trivers was named as receiving "major funding" of at least $40,000 from Epstein in 2014, and in an email referenced having a "wonderful lunch" that included a "bevy of beauties."

Also tonight, a federal judge has blocked a Trump administration rule that prevented members of Congress from making unannounced oversight visits at immigration detention centers.

Since Trump took office last year, several congressional Democrats have made oversight visits.

One here in New Jersey at Delaney Hall in Newark led to the arrest of Newark Mayor Raz Baraka and charges brought against Congresswoman Lamonica McIver.

Since then, U.S.

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Christine Nome announced a policy requiring seven days' notice before elected officials can make an oversight visit of an ICE facility.

A U.S.

district judge in D.C.

has issued a temporary restraining order blocking that policy.

Meanwhile, MacGyver is still facing federal charges stemming from that incident.

Today, MacGyver and other Democratic lawmakers stood outside of DHS headquarters in Washington, D.C., calling for Secretary Noem to be impeached or removed from office.

MacGyver is a cosponsor of a resolution to impeach Noem.

Coming up, we talk with Hoboken's mayor about how they're addressing residents' concerns after the recent ice activity in the city.

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.

Residents in Hoboken are on high alert after ICE agents were seen and recorded making multiple arrests at the 9th Street light rail station on Sunday.

Multiple arrests were also made in Jersey City and New Brunswick this weekend.

Hoboken's Mayor Emily Jabbour, together with Assemblywoman Katie Brennan, as well as former Mayor and now Assemblyman Ravi Bala, held an emergency information meeting on Sunday night to inform residents of their rights if they're approached by ICE officers.

We're joined now by Mayor Jabbour.

Thanks so much for taking a minute to talk with us today, Mayor.

My pleasure.

Thank you for having me.

Obviously, many Hoboken residents watched as ICE officers were patrolling your streets.

How did you first learn that there was ICE activity present in the city?

I started to receive text messages from concerned neighbors.

I actually live only a few blocks from the light rail station, and so it also then started to make its way to social media.

And I was seeing reports that I was being tagged on Facebook, any of those social media channels.

And so shortly thereafter I actually went to the area.

And by the time that I was able to get there along with Councilman Joe Quintero the ICE agents were gone.

But there were two witnesses on the scene who were able to fill us in a bit on what had happened.

Mayor let me ask you this.

The Trump administration has insisted that the actions that they're carrying out are meant to keep communities safe make communities safer that they're taking criminals off the streets.

Your job is to protect your city.

Do you believe that these actions by ICE agents are helping to keep your community safer.

I do not feel that this helps make our community safer.

Quite the opposite.

The level of anxiety and fear that now is in our community as a result of these actions is deeply upsetting for me.

And I'm hearing from people across the community at all ages.

You have high school students who are unwilling to walk to the high school by themselves.

You have senior citizens who are asking me about security protocols for participating in public activities like our bingo program at our senior center.

These are not people who are irrational.

They are not overreacting.

They're worried about their safety.

When you have masked agents who do not feel that they have to provide you with a warrant who are in unmarked cars that sends a warning signal that things that are happening are in the cover of darkness and the brazen taking of 10 people on Sunday morning is really, it strikes fear in people.

One of the officers on video in an interaction with Jersey City Councilman Jake Efros said, "We don't need a warrant, bro.

Get that out of your head."

That was his statement.

That is in alignment with the new DHS policy that DHS officers, ICE, CPB agents do not need a judicial warrant.

They can have what's called an administrative warrant to come into communities to make an arrest.

What is your response to that?

Do you believe that that is constitutional?

I do not feel that's constitutional.

We in the state of New Jersey and in our local law enforcement ensure that we follow the due process around a signed judicial warrant.

At this time, there has been no evidence provided that any of the people who were taken on Sunday morning had any criminal background.

There was outreach done on behalf of Representative Menendez on our behalf to get more information from DHS about the nature of what happened on Sunday, and they called it routine enforcement in their response to us.

We know at least three of these individuals worked in Hoboken businesses and have been in touch with business owners and their family members.

None of these people had criminal outstanding warrants.

That is not the case at all.

You held an information meeting on Sunday for community members.

First, how did that meeting come to be?

Let's start there, and then we'll get into what you shared.

Assembly members Katie Brennan and Ravi Bala gathered along with some advocates who happened to have had an event in Hoboken on Friday to start the conversation talking about what would happen if this came to our community.

So by Sunday there was a group of people who had already started having this conversation about how we could organize locally.

Over 200 people were in the physical space.

We had over 100 people who were seeking to get on the virtual connection.

We were able to provide a know your rights seminar in terms of understanding if you are in a situation where you happen to confront ICE agents to know what your rights are to know what different techniques you can use in terms of ways to deescalate and ask questions.

I think people felt the need to really be in community number one and to have the support of their neighbors to come together about their concerns and their feelings of fear, but then also to be empowered with information about what they could do if they found themselves in that setting.

I have to ask you when you say no you're right.

We have seen a lot of video taken by bystanders.

We saw Governor Sherrill encourage folks to have their cameras out Is there a way to record that you feel is responsible and documents without, as you said, inciting more perhaps aggression or making the situation more provocative?

Absolutely.

I mean, the councilman from Jersey City who took the video footage really demonstrates how information can be power.

We don't know what's happening necessarily unless people have the opportunity to take that video footage.

And I really commend Governor Sherrill for what she's doing and organizing on the statewide level to make that possible.

Because otherwise, how would any of us at the local level have any information about what had transpired?

It was several days later that we were actually able to get a response.

And that was only because of our congressman reaching out on our behalf that we got any response at all from DHS.

There was no previous notification to our local law enforcement with respect to this operation at all.

On the flip side of that do you have any messaging for folks to deescalate rather than to be using profane language.

We've seen and heard a lot of that even though certainly you can understand why some folks get you know emotional in those moments.

Do you have a message for folks.

Well certainly it's upsetting.

It is hard to contain your emotion in that moment when you're watching another human being being attacked and detained without any understanding of the circumstances of that.

One of the techniques that was shared on Sunday was to assist by asking someone for contact information for their loved one so that we could be assisting our neighbors in terms of letting people know what they've witnessed.

It's knowing that if you're on private property that you have the right to request a warrant before a signed judicial warrant.

To be very clear before they enter your private property.

Our superintendent of schools was also there to talk about the impact on our school properties and what parents need to know.

So it's definitely very useful to get that information and education out there.

If anyone has those questions, we have the slides that were presented.

I'm more than happy to provide that.

And Hoboken has an office of constituent services.

We've been directing people if they have any questions at all and want more information to please contact us through those channels.

And just quickly, your city right now is part of a lawsuit, the Trump administration, bringing that action because they say that you are a sanctuary jurisdiction because of a policy that says that no immigration enforcement can happen.

Explain just quickly how you're responding to that and is this a worthwhile endeavor for the city?

So just to correct you slightly, we are actually a fair and welcoming city.

So the term sanctuary city does not technically apply to the executive order that was initially passed in 2018 and then was further strengthened last year.

The city council passed something called the Hoboken Trust Act.

It ensures that city employees, including our police department, will in no way cooperate or aid ICE in their operations locally.

I think that sends a really important signal that we and Hoboken care about the diversity of our community.

It's what keeps us strong.

It is why we love to live here and we are a special place and we're going to continue looking out for our neighbors, not assisting agents like these.

All right.

Hoboken Mayor Emily Jabbour, thanks so much for taking some time to talk to us today.

Appreciate it.

My pleasure.

As we mentioned earlier, the Gateway Development Commission has sued the Trump administration for freezing the Gateway Tunnel project funding.

The commission is made up of New York and New Jersey officials and it's a $16 billion infrastructure project meant to improve transportation between New York and New Jersey.

The Regional Plan Association helped to develop the overall tunnel project plan and I'm joined now by its president and CEO, Tom Wright.

Tom, thanks so much for taking time to talk with us today.

We've seen these funds frozen for about four months now, since October 2025.

What's your reaction to the Gateway Development Commission filing suit today against the Trump administration?

Yeah, it's sad that it's come to this, but they really don't have any other choices, I think, at this point.

It's not clear what it's going to take to release the federal funding.

And so the Gateway Development Commission, led by Governors Hochul and Sherrill, have really had to take this step.

We've heard Governor Sherrill say that this could be a loss of thousands upon thousands of jobs.

Just help us understand what the economic impact is just from shutting down the project right now.

Over a billion dollars has already been spent on this project and it's fully funded.

It's about a 16 billion dollar project of which about three quarters is supposed to be federal money.

And New York and New Jersey are putting in a quarter of the cost also.

The project is currently underway.

It's on time and on budget.

Over a thousand people are working on four or five major components of it.

So so starting to shut this down on Friday will be majorly disruptive to all of that work.

And I think one of the key things for your for your your viewers to understand is that you can't turn it on and off kind of like you can say a tariff or something.

A project like this if they start to have to wind it down it's going to take once they start that process.

It takes months or years to reverse it.

Why is that Tom.

Help us understand.

And we've heard politicians say look if this stops the cost to pick it back up are going to grow beyond what has already been planned for.

Why.

That's absolutely correct.

Partially it's just because of the enormous complexity of this project.

I mean these are their contractors working on each piece of this on bids that were submitted a year or two ago and work is underway.

If those contractors are then told that the money's not there and they need to shut down the project, they're going to take that workforce and go work on another project.

Then let's say they say, "Oh, we've got the money back now."

Well, they're going to have to go through a whole bidding process again, bidding in 2026 dollars instead of 2024 dollars.

So you have the inflationary pressure that's applied to it.

Also, frankly, the contractors, when they put together those bids, they have to figure out a kind of risk assessment.

What's the chance that this thing's going to be shut down again, leaving me holding the bag, leaving me paying my workforce for work they can't do?

And so that will inflate the costs, too.

So kind of time is not on our side, and any delay is going to dramatically add to the cost of doing this project.

And by the way, everybody knows we need to build this new tunnel.

The existing tunnels are over 110 years old.

They flooded during Superstorm Sandy.

They are deteriorating, as you can see here.

I've ridden through them a few times in a special viewing car that Amtrak has.

You see cracks on the walls.

You see water between the train tracks.

It is a very disconcerting experience.

What happens Tom if one of those tunnels does go down.

What's the impact on this region.

We did a study a couple of years ago looking at both the traffic and the economic impacts of what would happen if just one of the two tunnels needed to be shot.

First of all so there are two tunnels one going in each direction under the Hudson River.

But if one of them has to be closed it will reduce capacity by 75% because you can't just run the trains all the way in all morning.

Trains have to be coming in both directions and the tunnels have to clear before you can do that.

So it's an estimated 75% reduction in capacity.

That means that the 140,000 people say commuting today under the river many of them need to find a new way to get to their job in the city which means they suddenly get on the ferries or the buses or the roads impacting everybody traveling through northern New Jersey and trying to cross the river.

We estimated that in terms of travel impacts over 500,000 people would see their commutes get worse, many of them not riding on those trains, and over 100,000 people would see their commutes get worse by over an hour every single day.

Meanwhile, economically, that means that property values will decline, tax revenues decline, income declines.

And you can literally measure the impacts from Virginia to Maine.

That's a massive, massive economic impact that you're talking about.

Let me ask you this with just three days left before the funds are completely run out.

Did this lawsuit come too late.

Are we already in a position where some of these contractors as you said could start to look for work elsewhere.

We don't know how quickly this will move through the courts.

We don't know how quickly it will move through the courts.

Look, you can't fault the Gateway Development Commission and the governor's offices for trying to work in partnership with the Trump administration and solve their concerns and get this moving.

So they didn't want to sue.

I think they didn't want to take this step until they had no other alternatives.

And when you say no other alternatives the Gateway Commission did say that they have utilized all reserves and all capital reserves.

They've taken out credit.

Just help color that in a little bit for us in terms of how they've helped to fund this project.

While no federal funding was coming.

Actually this was a recommendation that we made to them over a year ago.

And last spring they took out a 500 million dollar loan of credit line of credit with Bank of America.

And so they've had access to that money to keep paying even as the money wasn't coming in.

So they've really been looking under the cushions and doing everything they could to find the money to keep the project going.

This has been a political football since the beginning.

We saw under the Christie administration that the project was halted.

There was a huge fight to get funding from Congress.

We then got funding from Congress and now that's frozen.

First question, do you believe that this lawsuit will win in the courts given the fact that this funds were already congressionally appropriated?

Yeah.

I think that most of the legal scholars I've talked to, and I'm not a lawyer, but most of them feel that there's actually a strong argument that GDC and the governors have.

The money was committed.

And if the federal government can kind of rip up any contract, any funding commitment at will and essentially for no real purpose, then it's impossible to do large-scale infrastructure again.

I mean, that would add costs not just to this project, but to every major infrastructure project across the region -- across the country, I'm sorry -- because a federal commitment wouldn't be worth the paper that it's written on.

But on the flip side of that, we could very well see a rescissions bill move through Congress.

No one's suggested that yet, but we've seen it in other areas where the president pulled the funding and then Congress backed that decision.

Do you think that could happen here?

No, I don't think it could because there's bipartisan support for doing this project.

Here in the region, both Democrats and Republicans know how important it is to build this tunnel.

And again, the economic impact stretches wide beyond just New York and New Jersey.

Yeah, well said.

Tom Wright, thank you so much for your analysis here.

President and CEO of the Regional Plan Association, appreciate you coming on.

Thanks for having me.

New Jersey's emergency blood supply is critically low.

Officials in the Department of Health are asking all residents who are able to donate blood and platelets immediately.

They say a combo of severe winter weather and a fierce flu season have reduced the donations, leaving them with just a few days supply of several different blood types, including O, A negative and B negative, and with less than one day supply of single donor platelets.

Raven Santana visited a blood drive location today and has more on the need.

We'll have more on what you can do to help.

The New Jersey Department of Health is urging residents to donate as blood and platelet supplies across the state hit critical levels.

The urgency was on full display at the American Red Cross Blood and Platelet Donation Center in Titton Falls where many donation chairs sat empty.

The need is dire.

You know just since the beginning of the calendar year, since January, the American Red Cross has seen more than 500 blood drives nationwide canceled.

That yields about 20,000 missed donations.

That's a tremendous amount of blood that we did not have the opportunity to collect.

And it's gonna take each and every one of us to roll up our sleeves to start rebuilding that supply to a healthy level.

Kim Goetz is the interim CEO for the American Red Cross New Jersey region.

She says blood reserves ha 35% in the past month al are now outpacing supply and high flu activity.

Ke There is a shortage for a at this point we encoura to give.

It's a great tim and come on in.

Uh you kn have different needs for blood.

A, B and O are all the types.

But right now we do see a need for all blood types.

Platelets are also unique because they have a much shorter life.

They have to be used within five days of the donation.

So the need for platelets is constant.

Since platelets are critical and especially difficult to stockpile, hospitals and blood centers are now working to add emergency platelet drives throughout the month of February.

Sally Wells is with RWJBarnabas Health, an underwriter of NJ Spotlight News.

The RWJBarnabas Healthcare System uses over 65,000 units of blood a year, and some 16,000 of those are single donor platelets.

We find ourselves particularly concerned about our platelet inventory because of our advanced therapies for cancer people, cancer patients, forgive me, through the Cancer Institute of New Jersey.

The complicated surgical procedures we do, like open hearts, that require platelets on hand.

And for some donors I spoke with here, it's personal.

They say they've seen firsthand how giving blood can save a life.

I've gone through this with my parents, and they both needed blood at various times.

And sometimes it was a real issue trying to get it.

So I figured whatever I can do, I can do.

I wish more people would do it.

It's a shame.

I come in here a lot, and I don't see all the beds filled up.

And it would be nice to see all the beds filled up.

There's plenty of people out there that have blood.

Not long ago, my wife has a friend she found out has some type of rare disease and needs platelets.

So we both decided that we're going to do it a little bit more often.

Because I know someone that needs it.

But just generally, I've been given blood and platelets for many years.

And I'm able to do it, so I just do it.

Before my mother died, she was really sick for the last five years of her life, and I was her caregiver, working full-time job and her caregiver.

And she had several operations.

She required blood.

She also, as a very young child, needed blood transfusion.

So I guess that sticks in the back of my mind.

The donation process is straightforward.

About an hour from check-in to finish for whole blood and roughly two hours for platelets.

Right now, the American Red Cross is offering a $20 e-gift card to donors as an added incentive.

To be eligible, you must be at least 17 years old or 16 with parental consent, weigh at least 110 pounds, and be in good health.

Health officials say the need is immediate, stressing that donating now could help stabilize the blood supply and save lives.

For NJ Spotlight News, I'm Raven Santana.

Support for the medical report is provided by Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey, an independent licensee of the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association.

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

I'm Joanna Gaggis.

For the entire team here at NJ Spotlight News, thanks for watching.

We'll see you right back here tomorrow.

NJM Insurance Group, serving the insurance needs of residents and businesses for more than 100 years.

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