JERSEY CITY, NJ – With construction for the Gateway Tunnel Project stopped due to a freeze in funding by the Trump Administration, Senator Andy Kim (D-NJ) held a virtual town hall with 6,000 New Jerseyans to explain the impact the work stoppage would have for commuters, workers, and New Jersey’s crumbling infrastructure. Minutes after the town hall wrapped, it was announced that the lawsuit recently filed by the state of New Jersey against the Trump administration seeking emergency relief was granted, preventing President Trump from freezing funds for the project.
The stoppage of work comes after President Trump announced he was ‘terminating’ the Gateway Tunnel Project this past October as political leverage in his and Congressional Republicans’ efforts to increase American’s healthcare costs, provide unaccountable funds to DHS, and give massive tax cuts to the well-off and well-connected.
On the call, Senator Kim was joined by Dunellen Mayor Jason Cilento (R), President of the New Jersey Conference of Mayors, who recently joined the Senator for a tour of Dunellen where they spoke to the importance of the Gateway Tunnel Project to towns on the Raritan Valley Line. Senator Kim was also joined by Tom Wright, CEO, Regional Planning Association who spoke to the economic impact of the Gateway Tunnel Project has been on the forefront of advocating for funding to be restored.
“Going ‘shovels down’ today has already cost New Jersey too much – workers are now without paychecks, progress on construction has been lost, and we have already had to go to Court to fight this funding freeze,” said Senator Andy Kim. “New Jersey cannot afford to have yet another ‘summer of hell’; Trump needs to stop playing politics and reinstate this funding now.”
In response to a decision by a federal judge granting a temporary restraining order prompted by a lawsuit filed by the attorneys general of New Jersey and New York, Senator Kim stated, “This temporary restraining order is just the first step in restoring funding for the Gateway Tunnel Project. We will continue fighting to hold Trump accountable and get the project up and running again, and New Jerseyans back to work.”
“This is not a partisan issue, as it affects people from all walks of life,” said Dunellen Mayor, Jason Cilento. “As the current President of the New Jersey Conference of Mayors and a member of the Raritan Valley Line Mayor’s Alliance, both bipartisan organizations, I can assure you that this is a critical issue for mayors across the spectrum, throughout the state, and the broader tri-state area.”
“Gateway [Tunnel Project] will eliminate the delays that commuters and travelers on the Northeast Corridor suffer on a regular basis; stave off disaster when the 115-year-old tunnels fail; and double capacity under the Hudson River for the next generation of growth and prosperity,” said Regional Planning Association CEO, Tom Wright.“Stopping work on the project now is a terrible mistake that must be reversed.”
In addition to the Gateway Tunnel Project, Senator Kim answered questions on current ICE escalations occurring across New Jersey, Minnesota, and around the country, the latest on the funding fight to reign in DHS spending.
Highlights from the town hall include:
Why the Gateway Tunnel Project needs to be seen through:
“This is something that will bring in billions of economic gain in the next 25 or 30 years. This is something that is going to benefit thousands and thousands of jobs and transform our transit, as we hope to be able to move from 24 trains an hour to 48. So doubling the number of trains, that we can get in and out of New York, it will just completely transform our state in terms of what we’re able to do and grow our economy.”
President Trump’s decision to hold this funding hostage for political gain, and what that means for the workers hired for this job:
“There are going to be a thousand families, a thousand people that lose their jobs [this first day Gateway Tunnel Project is frozen]. I want [President Trump] to go and talk to them. And tell them why they’re losing their jobs. Why is it that they’re not going to be able to show up to work and they’re not going to get a paycheck.”
“Some of these are construction workers I have talked to – they talked about how they bought a new home, or moved here to be able to do this project, and they thought they were going to have steady work for years –and I saw the look on their faces recently as we’re seeing the reality setting in, the fact that they are going to lose their jobs today, a thousand of them, and thousands more to come.”
President Trump targeting projects in “Blue States”, like NJ’s Gateway Tunnel Project:
“We heard it straight from the president’s mouth in the Oval Office when he talked about [the Gateway Tunnel Project] being a “Democratic project”- it’s not a Democrat project. It’s an American project. It’s an infrastructure project, and it’s going to help millions of Americans, Democrats, Republicans, independents.”
“I can’t stress it enough that the President is really demonstrating that this is about political retribution. And I just find that to be absolutely wrong. That is not governance, and that is not what the people [in New Jersey] deserve.”
On reports of President Trump’s demands to rename New York’s Penn Station and Washington D.C.’s Dulles Airport after him, in exchange for the release of funds:
“Unfortunately, we are in a situation where the President of the United States is withholding funding that is allocated by Congress. This is not his personal slush fund. This is the American people’s money. This is our money. This is our infrastructure project, and he is refusing to put forward the funds unless we put his name on these buildings. That is extortion. And that is not right.”
The reality of where the money is coming from to fund ICE/DHS in places like Minnesota:
“The funds that are going to pay for this surge of federal agents to Minnesota, that came from your Medicaid – your healthcare funds. It was a direct transfer of money from our healthcare to this type of lawfulness and state violence, and that’s why our bills are going up. That’s why our healthcare costs are going up, and people are losing their healthcare, and having other challenges that are out there. And this is not normal at all.”
Future DHS Funding:
“I will do everything I can [to stop increased Funding for DHS]. I do not want to see this funding go forward on DHS. We need to push forward on real change – deep to the bone changes, in terms of what needs to happen to be able to set forward the kind of accountability to address this.”
“We need to get this surge of agents out of Minnesota…we want to see body cameras, that they not wear masks, visible IDs…but we need a whole lot more than that in terms of just stopping the roving efforts that they were doing and as they just grab people on the streets or knocking on our doors without a judicial warrant. These are the types of actions that must be agreed upon. Otherwise, we’re not going to fund [DHS], otherwise we’re not going to move forward with [new funding agreement].
The lawlessness by DHS in Minnesota:
“We need to get this surge of agents out of Minnesota, and we can have the independent investigation into these killings. Yes, we want to see body cameras, that they not wear masks, visible IDs, but we need a whole lot more than that in terms of just stopping the roving efforts that they were doing and as they just grab people on the streets or knocking on our doors without a judicial warrant.”
“But this is not just a Minnesota problem.We’re seeing it if you’re in New Jersey. I’ve been to Delaney Hall in Newark several times – just seeing the problems with my own eyes there in terms of these for-profit companies are profiting off of the misery and the cruelty that is being put forward.”
“I am hearing more and more reports from people who are worried about being grabbed on the streets. This is not the America that I want to raise my kids in, that we want your kids, your grandkids, to grow up in.”
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