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

>> Hello, and thanks for joining us tonight.

I'm Joanna Gagas.

Brianna Vannozzi is off.

Coming up, the case before the U.S.

Supreme Court today on birthright citizenship.

Also, the SCOTUS ruling that impacts conversion therapy for LGBTQ+ youth.

What does it mean for New Jersey?

And we'll dig into some of the latest headlines coming out of Trenton and Washington.

But first, a controversial plan to turn a massive warehouse in Roxbury into an immigration detention center is under review.

The Department of Homeland Security says it'll scrutinize nearly a dozen warehouses it's already purchased and will review all contracts signed under former Secretary Kristi Noem.

DHS bought the half a million square foot warehouse in Roxbury last month for more than twice its reported value with the plan to turn it into a detention center that can hold up to 1,500 people.

But the department had a leadership change with Mark Wayne Mullen sworn in as secretary last week.

And an official said in a statement, quote, "As with any transition, we are reviewing agency policies and proposals."

The Roxbury plan is headed to the courts after Governor Sherrill joined with the Republican Roxbury Council in a lawsuit.

During his confirmation hearing, Mullen promised U.S.

Senator Andy Kim that he would review the Roxbury location and work with the local community.

Also tonight, a federal judge issued a ruling on Tuesday that blocked the Trump administration's move to defund PBS and NPR.

The president originally signed an executive order blocking all funding for the two media companies back in May of 2025.

But this ruling has little impact on PBS or NPR stations because, since that order was first issued, Congress passed a bill to officially rescind the funding.

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the entity responsible for distributing federal funds to the media organizations, closed its doors at the end of 2025.

Tuesday's decision cited the First Amendment, arguing that free speech "does not tolerate viewpoint discrimination and retaliation of this type."

NPR, one of the plaintiffs in the case, claimed that Trump wanted to punish the network for the contents of its journalism.

They're celebrating the judge's ruling as a win for public media.

PBS chief Paula Kerger echoed a similar sentiment and affirmed the organization's commitment to educating and serving Americans.

But due to the complete lapse in funding after Congress passed the rescissions bill, it's uncertain what impact this decision will have on PBS or NPR, who've already suffered immense financial losses.

NJPBS will close its doors on June 30th.

Coming up, will birthright citizenship remain the law of the land?

We'll talk with former New Jersey Attorney General Matt Plotkin about today's Supreme Court hearing.

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.

Who has the right to U.S.

citizenship?

That's the central question of a landmark case before the U.S.

Supreme Court today known as Trump v. Barbara.

The case centers on an executive order that President Trump signed on his first day in office to end what's known as birthright citizenship.

That's a U.S.

policy that guarantees citizenship to any child born on U.S.

soil.

Well, the president's order ends automatic citizenship and instead makes it dependent on the parent's immigration status, denying it to those whose parents are undocumented or have temporary legal status.

The order was immediately blocked in the courts, and it's now made its way to the highest court in the land.

New Jersey's former Attorney General Matt Plotkin led a lawsuit against the President's Executive Order, and he joins us now to talk about all of it.

So good to have you with us.

Thanks for taking a minute.

Now, obviously, the case that you brought against the President's Executive Order is different than what's being heard before the Supreme Court today.

But just tell us what you laid out in your arguments as to why this was unconstitutional.

Well, first of all, thanks for having me.

It's very similar.

The cases were very similar.

The case that the court heard today was on behalf of private individuals.

The case that we brought was on behalf of a coalition of states.

And again, we filed that case 11 a.m.

The morning after the order was signed.

It was signed at 8 p.m.

on his first day in office.

The first time in 157 years that the president of the United States tried to rewrite the 14th amendment to say that babies born on U.S.

soil were not entitled to the same rights and privileges that they had been entitled to since the Civil War.

An extraordinary act on day one.

We sued immediately.

We were successful.

We actually litigated the case up to the United States Supreme Court.

Our Solicitor General, Jeremy Feigenbaum, argued that case in order to preserve our right to seek what was called a nationwide injunction.

But now the court has heard it a second time on the merits of the case.

And let's be clear, there is no good argument that the government has put forth that the understanding we have had for a century and a half that babies born here are citizens of this nation, they simply don't have any good argument to support their position.

Yeah, the case hinges on a phrase, I'm going to read it, in the citizenship clause of the 14th amendment that says, "All persons born or naturalized in the U.S.

and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the U.S."

As we heard oral arguments play out today, what is your interpretation of the questions that some of the justices were asking in terms of how they're approaching this case?

Yeah, I think the justices, having been through many Supreme Court arguments, were quite skeptical of the government's position.

Of course, they're going to ask probing questions of both sides.

That's what the Supreme Court does, but clearly skeptical of the government's position.

And again, we've said this since day one.

Remember, it isn't just the text of the 14th Amendment.

And there's really no good argument that's subject to the jurisdiction thereof doesn't contain or doesn't include children born on U.S.

soil.

But the Supreme Court also considered the many century -- over a century of precedence since the Wong Kim Ark decision in the 1890s, numerous acts of Congress that codified the exact same understanding that we put forth.

So the federal government, to say they had an uphill battle would be generous.

This was a political act put forth by a president attempting to usurp the powers of the Constitution and of Congress and of the American people to rewrite a provision in the Constitution that we had a civil war over.

We had a civil war to settle whether babies born here were in fact citizens of this nation.

And I think clearly the challengers to the order are going to prevail.

Yeah.

You just referenced the Wong Kim Ark case.

And the average viewer may not know what that case is.

Can you just lay out what was argued in that case and what the case was based on?

Sure.

Well, Wong Kim Ark was a child born here, and that case was in the 1890s, right around the same time, by the way, as the court was doing a whole bunch of other things that were not exactly "progressive."

So this wasn't sort of the most liberal court in American history, but it was about whether he was a child born here, similar to what we're talking about now, was in fact a citizen of this nation or whether he was a citizen of somewhere else.

And the court said clearly in that case that birthright citizenship under the 14th Amendment is the law of the land, codifying the understanding that we had had since the amendment in 1867.

And again, following that decision now 125 years ago, we have had numerous acts of Congress and numerous cases that relied on it.

No one questioned it.

No one seriously thought the 14th Amendment didn't say exactly what the Supreme Court said in Wong Kim Ark that everybody born here had understood it to say since that time, until this president came into office on January 20, 2025, and took a sharpie to the 14th Amendment of the Constitution.

That's why I was proud to lead the coalition of states fighting it.

I'm proud to stand with many, many advocates across the country who are standing up today in court and across the country speaking out for the rights of immigrants in this nation.

People born here who enriched this nation, who pay their taxes, who run businesses, who are Americans.

And we're saying that in New Jersey, in a state that lives in the shadow of the Statue of Liberty and of Ellis Island, I don't think we could have been a more appropriate lead state for this case.

Let me ask you this, what are the possible implications, depending on how this court rules, either way, we do know that the solicitor general said that this would not be retroactive to people already here if the Trump administration rule took effect, but what are the potential implications here of this ruling?

Well, first of all, he's saying that for this argument, but that has no binding effect on the administration.

They have argued in court that the president unilaterally can decide what is constitutional under the 14th Amendment or arguably, if they're right, under any provision in the Constitution.

An alarming and crazy escalation of presidential authority.

But the practical consequences of this, this is not a theoretical risk.

The practical consequences would be extraordinary.

The ordinary -- the order that the president signed says that babies born here under certain conditions are not U.S.

citizens.

It doesn't say what they are.

It doesn't give them a second class of citizenship that we have never had in this nation.

It doesn't say what nation they are citizens of.

So, you could have this permanent subclass of residents of this nation that don't belong to any country.

And for states, you think about the benefits we provide, educational benefits, health care benefits.

How are you going to go through and parse through what rights and privileges a child has?

I think Justice Jackson asked, are you going to have to depose the mother to determine what rights the baby has?

It's an absurd formulation.

And I think the fact that this administration, when they put forth the order, they said it would come into effect in 30 days.

As a reminder, this administration can't even get you in the airport in under six hours, but they're going to figure out how to impose a new class of citizenship in 30 days.

It's not serious.

It was a political act, and it was a flagrant violation of the Constitution.

We did hear the Trump administration attorney, John Sauer, say, you know, there are countries -- he referenced China -- who are sending people here to give birth and then leave.

He says it's a whole new world.

We heard Chief Justice John Roberts say in response, it's a new world, but the same Constitution.

So just kind of playing out there some skepticism in terms of that argument.

But let me just quickly ask you in the short time we have left, 24 states originally, I believe, filed the lawsuit to seeking a preliminary injunction.

What happens to those cases now, depending on the ruling here?

Do they move forward?

Does this set precedent?

Well, I'll certainly let the state speak for itself, but I assume, and I think the general view is based on the arguments today, that the court is going to side with the advocates challenging this order.

I think they are going to reaffirm that what they said in Wong K. Mark, that birthright citizenship is the law of the land.

And hopefully that ends this, and this administration stops trying to strip away the rights of babies born here.

But certainly I know the states that were in that coalition, who I was proud to litigate with and who stay strongly on the side of immigrants born here, will continue to fight for birthright citizenship and continue to fight for the rights and privileges of all Americans.

And the rule of law, this is not an abstract concept, like I said.

The rule of law means the president cannot tell a mother that their child born here is not an American citizen simply because he wants to.

And to be clear, our current Attorney General Jen Davenport did carry forward the case that you initially brought.

That's all the time we have.

We have to leave it there.

Matt Platkin, former New Jersey Attorney General and founder and partner of the law firm Platkin LLP.

Thanks for taking some time today.

Appreciate it.

Thanks for having me.

In another significant move from the U.S.

Supreme Court this week, the justices ruled 8-1 against a Colorado law that bans therapists from discussing conversion therapy with minors.

They ruled that the First Amendment protects a therapist's right to discuss conversion therapy with LGBTQ youth.

Only one justice, Katonji Brown-Jackson, dissented, arguing that states should be able to regulate such practices.

The ruling is likely to affect similar bans in more than 20 other states, including here in New Jersey.

Here to discuss the implications is Sue Livio, investigative reporter with NJ.com, who's been covering the case.

Sue, great to have you with us.

Thanks for taking a few minutes.

Thanks for having me.

I want to start with the SCOTUS ruling.

This is not a ban of Colorado's conversion therapy ban, right?

I hate a double negative, but that's where we are.

But what does this ruling do?

What it does is it narrowly focuses on First Amendment rights by the therapist.

They're drawing a line between, you know, conversion therapy, trying to change someone's sexual identity or orientation, used to be associated with a lot of adverse acts.

And this therapist only wanted to talk about sexual identity.

So it's saying that her freedom of speech is more important or perhaps is unconstitutional and has recommended that these bans not stand.

And so let me just jump in here.

The Supreme Court is actually sending this back to the lower court that had upheld the ban in the first place.

And they're saying really that they need to re-decide the case with stricter parameters.

So this was challenged and brought all the way up to the U.S.

Supreme Court.

Based on what's happened, how do you expect that lower court now to handle this case?

I think it remains to be seen.

I think when I was speaking with some constitutional scholars at Rutgers yesterday, you know, they said in the immediate effect is that New Jersey's ban or other state bans cannot be -- would not withstand challenge.

They cannot be upheld.

So they have to find a line between speech and conduct.

And I think it's going to be very difficult for any state to sort of thread that needle.

You know, the attorney general in New Jersey hasn't responded yet.

Based on what Rutgers professors told me yesterday, this is going to be very difficult for the bans to stand.

>> Let me just for context for The audience remind everyone That new jersey has had a Conversion therapy ban since 2013 that was put in place by Governor christy at the time who I remember at the time talked About a lot of the harms that Have been found to be associated With conversion therapy but this Case before the supreme court Really gets to the heart of First amendment rights and free speech.

Right.

And so there's I think what you're trying to say is a difficult line to toe here for any states that have a ban.

How do they.

How will those be upheld in court or not.

What could this mean then for New Jersey.

Do you see the potential for cases to be brought against the state.

Well I think it all depends on whether the Attorney General's office which you know regulates license holders wants to take action on this or someone brings in action against New Jersey.

Right now things are if nothing happens this ban isn't repealed but it's in effect gone.

So I think what you'll see is people you know the Southern Poverty Law Center was instrumental in bringing these cases around the country.

I think their Trevor Project I think they're assessing what their options are.

I don't think people were surprised by this.

Ron Chen, Professor at Rutgers saying you know anytime you're regulating speech you're on a thin line.

So this being shot down was not a surprise.

In fact medical scholars wrote an article the day before this decision came out in the Journal of American Medical Association saying that you know this is probably going to be shot down and we need to find a way to protect young people because again this only affects minors.

But you know Kachanji Brown Jackson's point was that you can't separate the speech from the harm that the speech or the therapy has caused.

And the rest of the court actually did that.

They set it aside.

So you know you'll have a lot of LGBTQ groups very upset and perhaps there'll be a challenge.

But until we hear from the attorney general this is a dead issue.

Yeah and just to drive the point home this was not a partisan ruling from the Supreme Court.

This was an 8 to 1 decision.

So most justices agreed that the First Amendment trumps whatever those harms may be.

But great reporting.

Sue Livio from NJ.com.

Appreciate you always coming on the show.

Thank you for having me again.

There's a whole lot coming out of Washington and Trenton that we want to get you up to speed on.

I'm going to go right to her.

Let's bring in our senior writer and projects editor Colleen O'Day, who joins us now as part of our Under the Dome series.

Colleen, lots to talk about.

Lots.

I'm going to start with the news that we heard this morning that the Department of Homeland Security is reevaluating its plans to expand immigration detention around the country.

First, what are they saying under their new leadership, Mark Wayne Mullen, and how does it impact New Jersey, particularly Roxbury?

Yes, so there's they're saying that they're going to reevaluate essentially all of the sites that were acquired or were being considered when Kristi Noem was still the secretary.

Roxbury is one of those and, you know, it would be interesting to see how this goes because they've already spent almost $130 million on this warehouse, so that would certainly be wasted money.

But, you know, the state has filed a lawsuit along with Roxbury, they've filed it jointly, and there are so many environmental concerns and traffic concerns about that property, water usage, sewer usage.

So I mean, I would think that an evaluation would kind of show that that's, you know, show those problems.

Not to mention the investment that would have to be made to get that facility up to speed to house the number of people they intend to house there, right?

with I think four toilets and five wash bins.

Nowhere near.

Right, the place was designed for a staff of ten because it was going to be a warehouse that housed items, not people.

We did speak with U.S.

Senator Andy Kim last week who joined us and said that he had specifically asked Mark Wayne Mullen to come and take a look at the Roxbury facility and to evaluate it.

Does this seem like a direct response and answer to that?

I mean, it could be.

I think, you know, they've been getting pushback.

DHS has been getting pushback from all over the country, even places in, you know, a red state like Texas, where these sites are just massive, and it's just kind of like they've been plopping them down.

So, you know, I think it's probably wise to go back and take a look, especially, as they say in New Jersey, if all of these previous reports were not done.

Let's look at data centers here in New Jersey.

You've been reporting on bills moving through the legislature, but we also saw a report come out this week from New Jersey policy perspective.

They lay the spikes in energy costs that we've seen here in New Jersey at the feet of data centers.

What are they saying?

How is the legislature handling data centers right now?

Right.

So they're saying that that increase was largely due to data centers.

Of course, we also know that we haven't had new sources of energy come online, which is certainly a part of that.

But one of the biggest problems is that these companies that want to site these data centers are really shopping around in multiple states at the same time.

So it's highly possible that the PJM, which is our grid operator for these multiple states, is really over counting the need for these centers.

So that's one of the recommendations, is to come up with a better way to say this is in fact what our need is.

The bill that's probably closest to getting to Governor Sherrill's desk at the moment in the legislature is one that would require utilities to set separate tariffs, they're calling it, for data centers or for other large load users so that the average customer doesn't have to pay for that.

Yeah, we do see a data center coming into South Jersey that says it's providing 85% of its own energy and so that's been a call that we've heard from particular Democratic lawmakers here in the state but some Republicans as well.

Let's switch gears.

We've got some new census data, not exactly new, but newly revealed census data that shows us how the president's immigration policies are impacting population here in New Jersey.

What can you tell us?

Yeah, so you know, in the year that ended, so they use kind of a mid-year point, so 2024 was July 1st, we'd seen an increase of about 121,000 in immigration.

In the past year, that's July 1st, 2025, it was down to 53,000, which is less than half.

So it's had a huge impact here in New Jersey.

We still have people moving out of New Jersey to go to Florida or retire in other places.

So that's not really helping us to increase the population as it had been.

We did see an increase, a greater increase in births than deaths.

That was really kind of what drove up the population increase.

It was less than one half of 1%.

But still important, especially if you think about congressional reapportionment coming in 2030.

New Jersey doesn't want to lose another congressional seat.

Right now it looks like we probably wouldn't.

So in Washington right now there's the Save America Act, which is a bill that just hasn't made its way through.

The Senate has not approved it.

It would change the way that voting registration happens in the country.

It seems the President is trying to enact any change he can while that kind of languishes on Capitol Hill.

He issued an executive order yesterday.

What can you tell us about this change that he's requiring states to make to mail in ballots?

Yeah, you're absolutely right, Joanna.

I mean, I think it's a direct response to the SAVE Act not passing.

So what he wants to do is he's going to have DHS and Social Security create this list of adult citizens who are eligible to vote.

He wants states to compare their roles with this because he's not been able to get states that are refusing to send him their voter rolls, that includes New Jersey.

He hasn't been able to get them so far to do that and courts have been against him in that.

The other thing he wants to do is essentially set, make a requirement that the U.S.

Postal Service not deliver any mail-in ballots unless a state has given this voter roll over to the federal government.

And to compare those mail-in ballots to that list, right?

Right.

And then there would have to be this special barcode on every ballot.

You know, Governor Sherrill put out a note saying this is essentially unconstitutional.

She's not the only one.

There've been a bunch of lawyers in other states that have said the same thing in the last few hours.

She says it's unconstitutional because the Constitution allows and requires states to manage their own elections.

She says this is the federal government interfering with states' rights to manage their own elections.

She also said that New Jersey will take every action that is available to protect voter rights here.

So I'm thinking New Jersey is going to be part of a lawsuit pretty soon challenging that executive order.

We have a whole lot of time left for a lot to talk about when it comes to the congressional races shaping up in New Jersey.

We do have some updates from Congressional District 12, the race to replace Bonnie Watson Coleman.

What can you tell us?

So, Sue Altman, who's considered one of the frontrunners, if not the frontrunner, faced challenges from three separate individuals over her ballot signatures.

She had twice as many signatures as she needed, so she will stay on the ballot, according to at least that's a judge's recommendation.

The final say comes actually later today.

But about a third of her petition signatures were invalid?

Yes, it's a large number.

Jesus Christ seems to have signed one of her petitions.

So there was an awful lot made of that in the judicial proceedings.

Only in New Jersey.

Only in New Jersey, we say a lot, don't we?

Yeah, there's a whole lot more we can talk about.

We will do another segment on those congressional races.

>> I'm Julie D'Orio, co-founder of a senior writer.

Thanks for all the insight.

>> Thanks very much, Joe.

>> "Under the Dome" is made possible in part by the corporation for public broadcasting, a private corporation funded by the American people.

>> That's going to do it for us.

But before we leave you, a heartfelt thank you to our senior editorial producer, Julie D'Orio, for more than a decade of service to NJPBS and to the stories that have had tremendous impact for our audience.

We will miss her dearly and we wish her the best of luck.

For Julie and our entire team here at NJ Spotlight News, I'm Joanna Gagas.

We'll see you right back here tomorrow.

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

[Music]