· Joined with U.S. Senators Robert G. Torricelli and Jon S. Corzine and Rep. Jim Saxton at the Federal Courthouse in Camden to announce the reintroduction of legislation in the U.S. House and Senate to create a Southern New Jersey Judicial District;

· Joined with Gloucester County elected officials and environmental and taxpayer watchdogs from around the nation at the Gloucester County Courthouse in Woodbury to announce his opposition to a new round of federal funding for the Delaware River Deepening Project; and

· Joined with leaders of South Jersey ethic communities at a meeting at the Maple Shade Municipal Building to support a new initiative to bring faster and fairer treatment from the Immigration authorities (INS) to South Jersey families.

"These initiatives have one common theme," Andrews stated.  "That is to improve the quality of life in South Jersey.  If adopted, these proposals would give South Jersey its fair share of federal law enforcement personnel, protect our drinking water and our taxpayers' wallets, and open the doors to more fast and fair treatment of South Jersey immigrant families," said Andrews.  " I will work with people from both political parties at all levels of government to advance this agenda," Andrews concluded.

At a press conference at the Federal Courthouse in Camden, NJ Congressman Andrews announced that he will be re-introducing legislation to establish a new federal Judicial District in New Jersey to be located in Trenton and Camden, which would serve Atlantic, Burlington, Camden, Cape May, Cumberland, Gloucester, Hunterdon, Mercer, Monmouth, Ocean, Salem, Somerset and Warren counties.   The proposed legislation would divide the State into two separate federal judicial districts; currently, all of New Jersey is contained in one single federal judicial district. By adding a new district, South Jersey would receive added law enforcement resources. Based on the 1999 New Jersey Uniform Crime Report, these 13 Southern New Jersey Counties account for over 35% of the violent crimes and over 51% of all arrests statewide.  Yet, South Jersey does not receive a proportional amount of law enforcement resources. There are 268 FBI agents stationed in the north, and only 89 in the south. There are 29 Deputy US Marshals in Newark, while there are only 7 in Trenton and 8 in Camden and there is only one actual U.S. Marshal who works in Newark.

Rep. Andrews was joined by both Senator Corzine and Torricelli who have pledged their support to this project and will work with Congressman Andrews to move legislation in the Senate to accomplish this goal.  Rep. Andrews announced at the press conference that he will be re-introducing his bill to create a Southern District of New Jersey next week which he originally introduced in the 106th Congress.  Also lending their support for this project are representatives of the NJ County Bar Associations for Atlantic, Burlington, Camden, Cape May, Cumberland, Gloucester, and Salem counties, the New Jersey Bar Association as well as representatives of law enforcement agencies all of which support Andrews' efforts.  

In Woodbury, Andrews met with local officials to discuss his plan to halt the dredging of Delaware River.  Armed with a recently released news article that alleges serious misstatements of fact by Army Corp of Engineer officials concerning a similar dredging project in Mississippi, Andrews has renewed his pledge to halt the project based on his economic and environmental concerns.  He has solicited the help of local and national environmental groups such as the New Jersey Environmental Federation, the Sierra Club and the National Wildlife Federation, tax-payer watch dog organizations such as the Tax Payers For Common Sense, and the help of his colleagues in the area in both the House and Senate, to call on the General Accounting Office (GAO) to audit this project to report back on both the alleged long-term economic benefits of this project to the region and to report on the environmental threats posed to both the drinking water supply and area watershed as a result of dredging the river bottom.  Andrews is optimistic that due to changing dynamics of this years Congress, he will be successful in stopping funding for this project pending a GAO audit. 

Congressman Andrews concluded his day by meeting with leaders of the Vietnamese-American, Indian-American, Korean-American, Greek-American, Philippine-American, and Hispanic-American communities as well as legal experts on immigration law, to discuss his plan to have Philadelphia INS service requests of South Jersey Residents to expedite the processing of these claims.  Currently, South Jersey residents must utilize the services of the Newark Office of INS, which has a significant backlog in cases.  According to the INS, the projected time for a claim to be processed in Philadelphia in less 7 months where as in Newark the wait time is 12 months.

Congressman Andrews believes that the close proximity of the Philadelphia Office to South Jersey residents coupled with the surplus resources at their disposal will provide for a mutually beneficial situation for the over-utilized Newark Office, and the residents of both Southern and Northern New Jersey by decreasing the amount of time it takes to have their INS matters tended to.  Rep. Andrews' hope is that this change can occur administratively and is working with officials at the U.S. Department of Immigration and Naturalization along with decision makers at both the Philadelphia and Newark offices.

As part of an entire day to improving the quality of life in South Jersey, Rep. Andrews also addressed South Jersey leaders of education, business, labor, and government at Virtua hospital in Voorhees, N.J. on "The State of the Region" where he highlighted his efforts on key issues such as suburban sprawl, improving the quality of the workforce, revitalizing Camden City's economic base and promoting open and honest government.

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