Members of the Morristown community celebrated the defeat of Mayor Donald Cresitello and are recruiting people to continue the fight against the implementation of Section 287(g), part of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, which authorizes police to take on functions normally assigned to immigration agents.

"The message was clear," said Diana Mejía, a member of the organization Wind of the Spirit. "The voters of Morristown don't want a candidate who might have an agenda that excludes a specific group," she added.

Cresitello was defeated in the Democratic primary on Tuesday by his opponent Tim Dougherty, by a vote of 1105 against 663 votes for the incumbent.

Mejía admitted that although her organization cannot do political campaigning, it can take a stance on a candidate. "We already said goodbye to Cresitello, now we're waiting to hear what Dougherty has to say," she said.

Stuart Sydenstricker, a member of the same organization, said, "A candidate didn't win here, a community did, and it wasn't only Latinos who won this victory, it was also people that say no to anti-immigrant agendas."

Sydenstricker indicated they now want to pressure Dougherty to become familiar with 287(g) and other measures as well.

During the last two years, Cresitello stood firmly with pro-immigrant groups after asking federal authorities to authorize the state to participate in the 287(g) program.

The defeated mayor said, "The people of Morristown have apparently spoken and I will leave this to the next administration."

Regarding 287(g), Dougherty said that the topic of immigration "depends a lot on the Obama administration. Everyone agrees that a route to legalization should exist. There was a lot of misinformation here; people didn't know for certain what type of criminal statistics exist in the places where 287(g) has been implemented."