The wife of a Democratic mayor in New Jersey was injured after an illegal immigrant fleeing ICE agents crashed into her vehicle on a major highway.

Federal agents had stopped the vehicle and smashed one of its windows before the driver fled onto a four-lane highway.

Dr. Penelope Cohen, who is married to East Brunswick Mayor Brad Cohen, was injured in the crash and treated for non-life-threatening injuries at a hospital.

The incident has heightened criticism of Gov. Mikie Sherrill’s policies and lack of cooperation with ICE.

“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 that got codified as soon as Gov. Sherrill came into office,” New Jersey Assemblyman Paul Kanitra, R-Point Pleasant Beach, told Fox News Digital.

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“We all fought against it. We told them that this would create chaos, and it seems like Democrats are unable to take accountability for their own actions,” he added.

“Gov. Mikie Sherrill has backed the state’s sanctuary-style protections for illegal immigrants,” Fox News wrote.

“The mayor’s wife was among several people hurt when the driver barreled through an intersection, striking multiple cars before coming to a stop,” it added.

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Kanitra said Sherrill and other Democrats have been unable to recognize the connection between their support for the “Trust Directive” sanctuary policy — signed into law by the governor this year — and incidents such as the one in Middlesex County this week.

“Democrats seemingly have an inability to take accountability for their own actions here. They’re unable to even recognize the chaos that they’re creating, and they’re shouting and screaming at everybody else trying to find somebody to blame. It’s somewhat ridiculous,” Kanitra said.

“You kind of reap what you sow,” he said, adding that at least two people in his district have been killed in incidents connected to illegal immigrants behind the wheel.

Kanitra also pointed to a separate case in his county in which an illegal immigrant allegedly drove a vehicle into a family outside a kosher supermarket, killing an infant.

“They got behind the wheel, and they wound up killing an innocent toddler in the process,” he said, calling the circumstances of the situation “absolutely abhorrent.”

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ICE arrests have surged in New Jersey since the spring, after agents began fanning out under orders to detain 2,000 immigrants nationwide a day.

In July, ICE detained more than 2,100 people in New Jersey — more than double the roughly 850 to 950 people that the agency was arresting monthly in the state from February to May, according to the Deportation Data Project, an academic group.

Seth Kaper-Dale, a pastor at the Reformed Church of Highland Park, which runs programs that support immigrants, described the increased pace of detentions as “just brutal.”

The Department of Homeland Security had previously said in a statement, “Our message is clear: If you come to our country illegally, we will find you, we will arrest you and we will deport you.”

North Brunswick police officials said in a statement that the driver of the car that federal officials pursued had run a red light and then “collided with another vehicle.”

“Following the collision, the driver exited the vehicle and fled on foot,” but was quickly apprehended, the statement said. North Brunswick police officers were not involved in the ICE stop or the chase, the statement noted.

Mr. Cohen, who accompanied his wife to the hospital, said that he was unable to immediately comment. His wife was also unavailable for comment.

 

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