Anti-sanctuary city, ICE cooperation package nears finish line

Yahoo

09-05-2025

Along party lines, the House of Representatives approved a combination bill that would ban anti-sanctuary city policies and make local officials honor cooperative agreements their county jail warden or local police chiefs made with federal immigration authorities.
House Majority Floor Leader Joseph Sweeney, R-Salem, was the architect of the new proposal that combines two bills that the Senate and House had separately passed into one proposal (SB 62 amended).
'If you are in New Hampshire illegally, you are not welcome in the State of New Hampshire,' Sweeney said.
Rep. David Meuse, D-Portsmouth, said this could lead to higher local property taxes since the state and federal governments aren't going to cover any of the community costs to enter into a so-called Section 287 G Task Force Agreement.
'This not only seeks to reduce local control to a point where it can be drowned in a bathtub, but it forces us to find cities and counties that refuse to knuckle under,' Meuse said. 'This is far from a trivial agreement in terms of time and dollars.'
State Police, sheriffs with three counties and police in six towns have already applied or received approval from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for the cooperative agreements with Gov. Kelly Ayotte's blessing.
The final vote of 202-160 was highly partisan.
Rep. Dale Girard, D-Claremont, was the only House Democrat to support it and Rep. Brian Taylor, R-Freedom, was the only House Republican to oppose it.
Last February, the House had endorsed a different but related anti-sanctuary city bill (HB 511) by a 351-6 roll call vote.
Since then, at the behest of President Donald Trump, Immigration and Customs Enforcement along with DHS has staged raids across the country to round up suspected illegal migrants and move to deport them.
Trump has spoken to officials from several countries about housing the deported individuals and endorsed placing the most serious criminals at the U.S. detention center in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
House Democrats drop support
In response, New Hampshire House Democratic leaders declared the state should not cooperate at all with Trump officials in this manner.
Last month, a test vote on the issue reverted to the usual partisanship as it passed 201-161.
New Hampshire has no sanctuary cities, but Sweeney said as written his bill applies to the 'welcoming' ordinances that officials in Hanover and Lebanon have adopted.
'This is a solution in search of a problem,' said Rep. Alissandra Murray, D-Manchester.
Rep. Jennifer Rhodes, R-Winchester, stressed that it doesn't force all law enforcement and prison wardens to enter into the cooperative agreements.
Rep. Buzz Scherr, D-Portsmouth, tried to amend the bill to require that local law enforcement cooperating with ICE must identify themselves in public, give their badge numbers and the agency they represent.
'When ICE goes to detain someone they go in masks, their faces are covered, they don't tell people who they are,' Scherr said. 'If New Hampshire law enforcement officials are going to participate under an act of ICE, New Hampshire doesn't want those people being incognito,' Scherr said.
'We shouldn't have something that feels like a kidnapping situation for those who are watching it.'
House Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee Chairman Terry Roy, R-Deerfield, said he'd agree with Scherr on most occasions, but sometimes local police could be asked to help federal officials take down violent criminals who could threaten to harm their loved ones.
'We want to give them the safety for themselves and their families so they can continue to do the job.'
The House rejected Scherr's amendment, 199-161.
What's Next: The bill heads to the State Senate and if it agrees with the two-bill, combination platter, the package goes to Ayotte's desk.
Prospects: The Republican-led Legislature has never been closer to making an anti-sanctuary city bill become a reality. The only thing that could stop this is an unrelated dispute between House and Senate leaders on something serious enough to put all kinds of other bills at risk.
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