White Supremacist Group Crashes NJ Labor Day Parade

SOUTH PLAINFIELD, NJ - A New Jersey white supremacist organization crashed a Middlesex County town’s Labor Day parade on Monday, the town's mayor confirmed.

Members of the New Jersey European Heritage Association, clad in American flag face masks and protesting border policies with a banner that read 'DEFEND AMERICAN LABOR … CLOSE THE BORDER,' were not registered to participate in the town’s parade. Nevertheless, the group was present at the event, according to mayor Matthew Anesh.

Replying online to concerned paradegoers who noticed the hate group marching, Anesh noted that the NJEHA never obtained the proper credentials to participate in the parade, and that police were tasked with monitoring the protest.

“The [South Plainfield] Police Department intervened and treated the group as protesters,” Anesh tweeted on Monday. “In no way, shape or form did I, the governing body, the parade committee or any other SP group approve of their presence.”

The group “espouses racism, anti-Semitism and intolerance under the guise of ‘saving’ white European peoples from purported imminent extinction,” according to the Anti Defamation League. The group is known for spreading antisemitic fliers around central Jersey and attending white supremacist rallies.

Anesh added that a tweet alleging that the NJEHA were escorted by police to participate in the parade was false: the group was at the back of the festivities, and police officers were close by in order to keep an eye on the protesters.

“The South Plainfield Police Department intervened and treated this protesting group as just that, protesters,” Anesh added in a statement released Tuesday. “In no way shape [or] form did I, the governing body, the Public Celebrations Committee or any other group or organization in South Plainfield condone or welcome this group to the parade.”