Frank Pallone

When Derrick Healy was asked to be a guest of U.S. Rep. Frank Pallone at President Donald Trump's State of the Union address taking place Feb. 24, he jumped at the chance — but he'd rather be prepping the Gateway rail tunnel's Tonnelle Avenue job site in North Bergen for tunnel boring machines.

"I’m not a real political person, I just go to work every day," the Ocean township resident said. "I just stay afloat of the tax man, you know?"

Healy, a member of Laborers International Union of North America Local 472, is one of the nearly 1,000 laborers laid off from the $16 billion Gateway tunnels job.

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The Gateway Development Commission, the agency overseeing the massive construction program, ran out of money Feb. 6. For more than four months starting Sept. 30, 2025, the Trump administration withheld federal reimbursements for the project to the tune of more than $205 million.

The money was released last week after the states of New York and New Jersey and the Gateway commission sued the Trump administration in two different federal courts for withholding the funds. A federal judge ordered the release of the money while the cases play out and construction is expected to resume soon.

Politicians and laborers have spent the last few weeks rallying against President Donald Trump's decision to withhold the money, blasting the decision on social media and trying to send a message that this 15-year generational construction project — the largest federally funded civic works project in the U.S. — aligns with his an "America first" agenda.

The Gateway project involves constructing a new two-track rail tunnel between North Jersey and New York Penn Station to improve service, and then rehabilitating the 116-year-old tunnel currently in use.

NJ Transit and Amtrak riders who take trains that use the old tunnel routinely deal with delays, cancellations and unreliable commutes because of the tunnel's age, as well as the damage from corrosive salt water during Superstorm Sandy in 2012.

Guest symbolic of working Americans

Pallone, who represents parts of Middlesex and Monmouth counties, said bringing Healy as a guest is symbolic of many Americans who simply want to work and provide for their families.

“I’m bringing Derrick to remind the country of the hardworking people struggling to make ends meet who Trump has abandoned," Pallone said in a statement. "New Jerseyans like Derrick want the chance to work hard and get ahead, instead Trump stuck them with skyrocketing costs.”

Healy is first-generation American, a son of an Irish immigrant who secured a job with an elevator repair union in New York City, a job that allowed his father to care for Healy and his three brothers. And now Healy's two adult sons are union laborers with 472 and the "tin knockers," the union that does sheet metal HVAC and duct work.

"They understand, they’ve been with me through thick and thin," Healy said of his family, who recalled a similar feeling of uncertainty 15 years ago when the predecessor project to Gateway, known as ARC, was cancelled by former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.

"When you start playing politics with lives, we don’t lay back, we just keep going along," he said.