House Democrats join Republicans in passing anti-sanctuary city bill, pointing to compromise
The New Hampshire State House, Feb. 6, 2025 (Photo by Ethan DeWitt/New Hampshire Bulletin)
The House nearly unanimously passed a bill to ban 'sanctuary city' policies in the state Thursday, after Democrats sided with Republicans to advance a version they argue is less drastic.
House Bill 511 passed, 351-6, without discussion from either side. Six Democrats voted no.
Republicans were elated. 'Today House Republicans resoundingly and unanimously voted to ban dangerous and lawless sanctuary city policies and to keep our schools from being used as housing for illegal aliens,' said Majority Leader Jason Osborne, in a statement released after the vote. 'Our position is clear: We will not allow our communities to be overrun by an invasion of illegal aliens.'
Democrats, who broadly oppose anti-sanctuary city bills, did not release a statement. Many Democratic representatives declined to answer questions about the vote. But some said they had voted for HB 511 because the latest amended version lessened its impact and was preferable to a stricter alternative.
The bill states that 'no state government entity, local government entity, or law enforcement entity shall knowingly enact, issue, adopt, promulgate, enforce, permit, maintain, or have in effect any sanctuary policy.'
Sanctuary policies are defined as laws or policies that prohibit or impede law enforcement agencies from cooperating or communicating with a federal immigration agency – and that hamper police officers' compliance with federal immigration laws.
The bill allows the state attorney general to file a lawsuit against any locality that carries out those policies.
It is not clear how many cities and towns have such policies; two examples are Lebanon and Hanover, which both passed 'welcoming ordinances.'
Republicans have argued the policies encourage undocumented people to move to those cities, knowing it is less likely they will be turned over to federal authorities like Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
House Democrats say they are opposed to the laws in general. But they have supported an amendment to this bill added by the House Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee. That amendment states that unless otherwise authorized by law, New Hampshire law enforcement are barred from investigating or taking part in investigations into the citizenship of someone they arrest. Those investigations may only be carried out by ICE or other federal agencies, the amendment states.
'The vote on HB 511 was a harm-reduction measure,' wrote Rep. David Meuse, a Portsmouth Democrat, in a Jan. 26 Facebook post. 'As amended, the bill has the support of the Immigrant Rights Network here in New Hampshire. Since Republicans may have had the votes to pass this legislation unamended, Democrats on the committee worked hard and worked together to try to mitigate and minimize its potential harm.'
Rep. Alissandra Murray, a Manchester Democrat, agreed that Democrats' participation was intended to pare back the legislation. She said the amendment had come out of bipartisan negotiations with Rep. Terry Roy, the chairman of the House Criminal Justice Committee.
'We absolutely agree that people who are committing crimes in our communities should not be continually just let out and not face the consequences of their actions,' she said in an interview. 'But we also think that it's important for law enforcement to maintain the trust they have with immigrant communities, which requires them to not have to be forced to detain every single person that they come across who may have an ICE detainer.'
By adding guardrails that restrict police from proactively taking action by reporting people to ICE, Murray argued the bill would prevent law enforcement from being deputized against law-abiding people. Instead, police departments would be required to contact ICE only in cases when they arrested a person and noticed that ICE had flagged the person with a detainer request.
The bipartisan negotiation over the bill echoes previous instances where Murray and Roy have worked together on the Criminal Justice Committee on behalf of their parties. In 2024, the two helped steer a compromise bail reform bill through the Criminal Justice Committee and ultimately to Gov. Chris Sununu's desk, who signed it in August. Republican Gov. Kelly Ayotte, who opposes the 2018 legislation that sought to lessen bail conditions, has been critical of the 2024 compromise bill and is pushing for further legislation to restrict bail this year.
'In the Criminal Justice Public Safety Committee, we have a track record of doing strong bipartisan work together,' Murray said Thursday. 'That's really our priority as a committee: passing legislation that can stand the test of time and meet the needs of our constituents without falling prey to national talking points.'
But HB 511 may not be the final word on anti-sanctuary city legislation this year. The Senate passed its own bill, Senate Bill 71, which bans sanctuary city policies but does not include guardrails that restrict law enforcement from working with ICE. That bill will be taken up by the House in the coming months.
Meanwhile, HB 511 itself has not yet left the House; it goes next to the House Finance Committee and will need to pass one more vote on the House floor before it can head over to the Senate. That leaves more opportunities for the bill to be amended again.
Ayotte ran in part on tightening New Hampshire's immigration laws and repeatedly touted her support for banning sanctuary cities during her 2024 campaign. With Republican majorities in the House and Senate, legislation is likely to pass both legislative chambers. But it is less obvious what form that final bill might take.
In contrast to House Democrats, Senate Democrats have been unequivocally opposed. At a press conference, Sen. Suzanne Prentiss, a Lebanon Democrat, praised her city's ordinance that bars law enforcement from acting on ICE detainers unless the person has been charged with a crime. And she spoke against the Senate version of the bill.
'I won't be supporting it,' she said. 'I think that we're conflating civil and criminal.'
'… If you're arrested, and you are, you have a criminal offense, then that's one thing,' she said. 'But if you are in our community working on becoming a citizen, we are not going to target you and do the job of ICE.'
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