In the quiet suburban sprawl of Edison, New Jersey, a political ceremony is poised to unfold with all the pomp one might expect. Mayor Samip “Sam” Joshi will raise his right hand on January 4, sworn into a second term before a gathering of supporters at the town’s new $12.7 million youth sports complex.
The event celebrates a commanding electoral victory. Yet the true cornerstone of this new term was laid not by voters at the ballot box, but by a unanimous vote of a lame-duck Township Council at a late-December meeting.
With that vote, Joshi’s salary was increased by a staggering 32%—a $48,000 raise that lifts his annual pay to $198,000 and places him among the highest-paid mayors in the state.
According to U.S. Census Bureau data, the median household income in Edison was $124,388, with a per capita income of $53,803 in 2023.
The timing, critics argue, is the heart of the matter.
The council approved this substantial increase after the November election, a move that has left a distinct odor in the nostrils of residents like Joel Bassoff.
Bassoff argued that securing a 32% raise from a lame-duck council “converts the sweet smell of victory into the stench of arrogance and greed.”
“If the 32%, $48,000 raise was legitimate, it would have been on the agenda before the election,” said another angry resident. “When you wait until the very end of a lame-duck Council term, something fishy is going on.”
Joshi, for his part, frames his landslide win as a broad mandate, if not permission to act like a thief in the night.
“Winning with 72% of the vote meant Republicans and Independents also supported my reelection,” he claimed.
Council members who supported the raise defended it as long-overdue compensation for a demanding, round-the-clock job leading New Jersey’s sixth-largest municipality.
They argue the position was “grossly underpaid” and that the new salary is fair for the workload and responsibility.
A Tale of Two Policies: Tough Talk and Quiet Cooperation
This controversy over personal remuneration is set against a backdrop of far more severe institutional actions that have shaken Edison’s sizable immigrant community.
Four years ago, Joshi became the township’s youngest mayor and the first of South Asian descent to hold the office after winning a contested race against Republican Keith Hahn and independent Christo Makropoulos, succeeding Mayor Thomas Lankey.
The son of immigrants from India who settled in Edison 38 years ago, opened a convenience store, and worked to build a life there, Joshi often references this history.
However, Joshi stunned advocates in 2024 by declaring undocumented migrants “not welcome” in his township, where 45% of residents are foreign-born.
Joshi told Good Day New York he had a charter bus on standby to take migrants bused to places controlled by Democrats by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott “straight back to the other side of the border” if they stayed in Edison.
He told News 12, “I want to make it clear that our position here in Edison Township is that they’re not welcome here, they are illegal, and they belong on the other side of the border.”
Advocates called his statements “shocking,” “nefarious,” and deeply “hurtful.”
“That’s extremely vitriolic language,” said Amy Torres of the New Jersey Alliance for Immigrant Justice. “I don’t know what it must feel like for the people of Edison to see the leader of your city say something like that.”
Joshi riled civil rights activists in the summer of 2025, when federal agents from Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) conducted multiple raids on local warehouses.
In a chaotic August operation, dozens of workers were detained; witnesses described agents blocking exits, leading people away in zip ties, and issuing yellow wristbands to those with documents.
The scene was one of fear and familial separation, with advocates criticizing the tactics as “extremely un-American and illegal.”
Here, the collision of power and institution becomes starkly clear.
Joshi has cultivated a public image as a hardliner on immigration.
In early 2024, when migrant buses arrived in New Jersey, he made headlines with unequivocal statements: “Our position in Edison Township is that they’re not welcome here … They’re illegal, and they belong on the other side of the border.” He even announced he had a charter bus on standby to send migrants back to the southern border.
Yet when federal agents rolled into Edison to conduct their raids months later, the township’s police department was notified in advance and, by the mayor’s office’s own account, did not interfere.
The official line followed a state directive prohibiting local police involvement in federal immigration operations.
The practical result, however, was a municipal green light for a federal action that ran directly counter to the professed values of New Jersey’s senior leadership.
U.S. Senators Cory Booker and Andy Kim condemned the raids, stating they “run counter to New Jersey’s values,” but the political establishment failed to exact any penalty from the Trumpish mayor.
The Bottom Line
The story emerging in Edison is not merely one of a generous pay raise.
It is a case study in modern political leverage. It reveals how electoral capital, once banked, can be spent on personal gain with the complicity of aligned institutions.
It demonstrates how harsh, headline-grabbing rhetoric aimed at one vulnerable group can coexist with quiet, procedural cooperation in actions that affect another.
As Joshi takes his oath as Mayor in the shadow of a new, multi-million-dollar sports complex funded by public money, and begins his term with a significantly enlarged personal salary—also funded by public money—residents are left to weigh the substance of governance against the symbols of success.
The council may call his raise a correction for past oversight. His opponents call it a betrayal of trust.
The truth, as it so often does in the clash of power, money, and institution, likely resides in the eye of the beholder—and the size of the paycheck.