A vigil is held outside the gates of Delaney Hall immigration detention center in Newark, N.J., after the death of Renee Good., Dakota Santiago for The New York Times

Democrats in New Jersey — emboldened by convincing wins in November — passed a trio of bills on Monday designed to expand migrant rights, an effort seen as a defiant statement of principle in a state with the country’s second largest percentage of immigrants after California.

The Democrat-controlled State Legislature approved measures on the last day of a two-year legislative term that will, if signed into law by the governor, reinforce existing protections and make it more difficult for federal agents to target undocumented immigrants for deportation. The legislation has already drawn criticism from the Trump administration, which has expanded deportation efforts across the country over the past year.

The push comes months after immigration became a divisive issue in the governor’s race.

Mikie Sherrill, New Jersey’s Democratic governor-elect, assiduously avoided taking a clear position during the campaign on the state’s Immigrant Trust Directive, a policy enacted in 2018 to limit how much help local law enforcement officers can offer federal immigration agents. At the time, her Republican opponent, Jack Ciattarelli, was vowing to repeal the directive on Day 1 as he tried to appeal to voters supportive of President Trump’s efforts to increase deportations.

The conversation gained new intensity last week after a federal immigration agent shot and killed Renee Good, a U.S. citizen, during an enforcement action in Minnesota, a death several lawmakers cited before casting votes.

“We recognize we have no ability to direct ICE,” said Nedia Morsy, director of Make the Road New Jersey, an immigrant rights group supportive of the package of legislation. “But we can make it very clear that New Jersey has consistently been committed to honoring people’s due process rights, and it’s important that legislators are taking this moment to underline that commitment.”

In November, the Democrats’ already large majority in the Assembly grew even more formidable as voters overwhelmingly rejected Mr. Ciattarelli, who was endorsed by Mr. Trump and who embraced much of the president’s far-right ideology during the campaign.

The leader of the State Assembly, Craig Coughlin, represents a district that abuts Edison, a diverse suburb where two of the region’s largest warehouse immigration raids took place, leading to the detention of 49 workers. He said he had become acutely aware of immigrant families too frightened to show up at places like food pantries and hospitals.

“I became convinced, candidly, that too many people were living in fear and that it was denying them the dignity of a normal life,” Mr. Coughlin said in a brief interview.

“We wanted to stand up for people who were afraid,” he added.

Monday’s votes came a week after a White House spokeswoman first criticized the bills in a statement that urged the Legislature to protect “law-abiding citizens, not the criminal aliens who kill them.”

Versions of the legislation have languished in the Legislature for years, but were fast-tracked days before Ms. Sherrill is set to take over as governor on Jan. 20.

To be enacted, the three bills would need to be signed into law by the outgoing Democratic governor, Philip D. Murphy. He could also issue a conditional veto, requesting specific amendments before Tuesday at noon.

One bill would give the guidelines contained in the Immigrant Trust Directive, enacted by a former attorney general, Gurbir Grewal, the force of law, making it harder for a future administration to undo. A second piece of legislation would require the state to write “model policies” to protect the rights of New Jersey residents at sensitive locations, including schools, courthouses, shelters, jails and health care facilities.

Under the bill, the state would be expected to provide instruction to employees of these so-called safe spaces about when and where federal agents are permitted to enforce civil immigration laws — and when and where they are not.

A third bill would safeguard personal information held by health care facilities and government agencies, including the Department of Motor Vehicles, and limit its release to federal authorities. Undocumented immigrants have been able to obtain driver’s licenses in New Jersey since 2019, leaving details about their personal lives vulnerable to scrutiny by federal immigration authorities.

“While we cannot solve this on our own, we have a duty to the residents of New Jersey to do all that we can to protect them,” said a Democratic assemblywoman, Ellen Park, who arrived in the United States with her family as a 6-year-old and who sponsored two of the three bills.

A spokesman for Ms. Sherrill said that she would not comment on pending legislation, but noted that she had indicated support for the goals of the Immigrant Trust Directive.

Republicans rejected the legislation as misguided.

“This bill ties the hands of law enforcement,” Assemblyman Gerry Scharfenberger, a Republican from Middletown, said of the trust directive. “This is also another legislative attempt to further entrench the costly status of New Jersey as a sanctuary state, costing taxpayers millions of dollars.”

Mr. Trump made significant inroads in New Jersey in 2024, winning more votes than his Democratic opponent, former Vice President Kamala Harris, in more than half of the state’s counties. But his administration’s immigration policy has been particularly contentious in the state.

Soon after taking over, the Trump administration authorized a $1 billion contract with a private prison company to reopen Delaney Hall, a 1,000-bed jail near Newark Liberty International Airport, as a migrant detention facility.

In May, Newark’s mayor, Ras J. Baraka, and the city’s congresswoman, LaMonica McIver, were charged with crimes stemming from a brief but volatile clash with federal agents. The next month, four men escaped through a flimsy wall at Delaney Hall during unrest over meager food portions and crowded conditions.

The charge against the mayor was dropped, but Ms. McIver’s case is moving toward trial.

Immigrant rights advocates had pressed to not only enshrine the Immigrant Trust Directive into law, but to also add protections for undocumented migrants with final orders of removal from the United States; that effort was sidelined in the Senate after a lengthy hearing last week filled with impassioned pleas from immigrants.

During the hearing, Sen. Bob Smith, a Democrat, said that the amended bills were a necessary and appropriate response to what he called “atrocities” by immigration agents, including the shooting death of Ms. Good in Minneapolis.

“This is the kind of thing that has to be done for us to get America back and to get it working and for people to be respected and not to have masked police forces hurting people,” he said.

Tracey Tully is a reporter for the New York Times who covers New Jersey.