Anti-sanctuary city bill detained in N.H. House
May 5—CONCORD — Supporters seeking to ban sanctuary city policies in New Hampshire were sent scrambling after House Democrats dealt them a serious setback last week.
Without debate, the House of Representatives voted, 188-177, to table a Senate-passed bill (SB 563) that would prevent cities and towns from adopting policies that instruct local police not to work with federal officials when it comes to enforcing immigration laws.
The defeat may not be a permanent one if House Republican leaders can regroup and bring the proposal back up in the coming weeks of the 2024 session.
"We cannot let New Hampshire fall into a state of disarray like Massachusetts, burning through state resources and putting us in a crisis," said House Majority Leader Jason Osborne of Auburn.
"House Democrats should stop hiding from their constituents and debate this issue."
State Rep. Jonah Wheeler, D-Peterborough, said the legislation simply wasn't ready for prime time.
"We should not be voting on bills with amendments just before (these are) handed to us in committee and here on the floor," Wheeler said during a brief debate on the measure.
"There needs to be more work on this bill."
House Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee Chairman Terry Roy, R-Deerfield, tried without success to convince his colleagues to take up changes that his panel had made to the bill that cleared the Senate last month.
"This is a bill that both sides want to be heard on," Roy said.
The legislation broke down largely along partisan lines with only eight House Republicans backing this move to sideline the bill: Reps. David Bickford of New Durham, Jason Gerhard of Northfield, J.R. Hoell of Dunbarton, Matthew Santonastaso of Jaffrey, Emily Phillips of Fremont, David Testerman of Franklin, Dick Thackston of Troy and Dan Wolf of Newbury.
Rep. David Preece of Manchester was the only House Democrat who opposed tabling the bill.
Sununu: 'Rule of law must stand'
Last week, Gov. Chris Sununu urged lawmakers to send the bill to him.
"There are definitely communities here and across the country that are looking to have sanctuary city or sanctuary state policies," Sununu said.
"The rule of law must stand. If you don't like the law, work with the Legislature and change the law, but in the name of social justice we are a nation of laws and people need to have faith that the system will work for them."
Republican senators pursued this bill after Hanover, Lebanon and Harrisville put in place policies that limit their police from working with federal officials that want someone detained who they believe is here illegally.
"I have said this a thousand times. If you have sanctuary policies in New Hampshire or any other state, you are going to be a magnet of the problems we see just over our southern border in Massachusetts," said Senate President Jeb Bradley, R-Wolfeboro.
The legislation would only apply to someone who is arrested for a state crime and then when federal Immigration, Customs and Enforcement officials asked for that person to be detained for up to 48 hours.
These detainer orders apply when ICE has probable cause to believe that the person is a "removable, non-citizen."
The House committee had recommended striking one provision in the Senate bill that would require local police use "best efforts" to help enforce federal immigration laws.
Roy said that was overly broad.
Rep. David Meuse, D-Portsmouth, said these detention orders come from federal immigration officials and not judges.
Meuse said current sanctuary policies here prohibit police from helping with a federal investigation into someone's citizenship status or making local police disclose any information they have on a person's status without getting permission from that individual.
"What they don't do is prohibit a law enforcement officer from contacting ICE should they arrest an individual for whom ICE has issued a detainer if they commit a crime in our state," Meuse argued.
In a related matter, the state Senate last week voted to kill a House-passed bill (HB 1528) to require more specific, semi-annual reports on the use of the $1.4 million Northern Border Alliance program which is to beef up patrols near the state's northern border with Canada.
Senate Deputy Democratic Leader Cindy Rosenwald noted that during a 15-month period from October 2022 to December 2023 there had been only 21 apprehensions or encounters at the northern border in our state.
"Fiscal responsibility towards taxpayer dollars depends on detailed, clear, and factual data, and the Northern Border should not be judged by any other metric than that," Rosenwald added.
The Senate killed that bill on a 14-10 party line with all GOP senators supporting that move.
