The New Hampshire Senate approved a bill today that would allow local and state law enforcement to sidestep federal border agents and arrest migrants crossing illegally into the northern New England state.
“At the northern border, nearly eight percent of encounters are with single adults, military-age men from hostile nations, and not families,” said state Sen. Rachel Caron in urging passage of the Senate bill. “Open border activists are trying to pretend that a crisis does not exist. They want to ignore the explosion of illegal encounters on the northern border.”
The Republican bill was passed in a 14–10 party-line vote by New Hampshire’s 24 Senators. It is believed to be the first state legislation of its kind to tackle northern border crossings into the United States.
It would make New Hampshire the first northern state to take actions similar to those taken by Texas at the southern border. It bypasses the federal government as the sole authority to arrest illegal migrants in the United States and bolsters the Live Free or Die state’s lone role in the northeast in fighting illegal immigration at the southern border.
On Feb. 16, Gov. Chris Sununu won approval of a funding request by the state’s Legislative Fiscal Committee to deploy the New Hampshire National Guard to assist Texas in curbing the flood of migrants pouring over the Mexico border.
“In the absence of a willingness at the federal level to secure our borders, states (both individually and collectively) must undertake efforts to protect the safety of their citizens,” Mr. Sununu wrote in a letter requesting the authorization.
Before voting ‘no’ in the roll call, state Sen. Debra Altschiller suggested that if the “pseudo-north border crisis” is so dire, maybe New Hampshire should keep money in the state to fight immigration.
The New Hampshire bill also follows Gov. Sununu’s request last year to Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to delegate authority to New Hampshire law enforcement to enforce federal immigrant laws and his request the year before for federal funding to step up patrol of New Hampshire’s northern border. Both were denied.
Under the New Hampshire legislation, migrants entering the state illegally could be arrested and charged with criminal trespassing if found on privately owned land enrolled in the state’s current use program, which provides a tax reduction to owners in exchange for preserving their property as open space.
Presently, there are about 3 million acres of current-use land in New Hampshire, with a big chunk of the acreage spanning the state’s 58-mile-long border with Canada.
‘No Trespassing’ Signs
To thwart the passing of illegal immigrants on the land and give local law enforcement a legal cause to arrest them, Senate Bill 504 will allow owners of current-use land to post No Trespassing signs for the first time to limit its public use to specified recreational purposes only.“An owner of open space land may post “No Trespassing, except for skiing, snowshoeing, fishing, hunting, hiking, or nature observation” signs that ”prohibit or restrict the access to or use of such open space land for any other purpose,” the bill states.
Anyone found on the property for any other reason would be subject to arrest on charges of criminal trespassing.
Democrats argue that the new measure sets up discrimination against U.S. citizens as well as migrants.“How do we distinguish between a migrant carrying a backpack and wearing boots from any other hiker who is permitted to walk on the land?” asked state Sen. Rebecca Whitley during the floor debate ahead of its passage today.
At a previous hearing on the bill, Bruno D'Britto, an immigration attorney for the New Hampshire Brazilian Council, expressed concern that it would result in racial profiling, noting that his skin has a brown tone.
“Someone sees me on their property with a backpack, they are going to think I’m crossing the border,” he said.
New Hampshire, with a population that is 92 percent white, is considered the third whitest state in the nation.
Mr. D'Britto also argued that immigration enforcement should rest with the federal government and not the states.
In opposing the bill, The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) recently argued that there are not enough border crossings in New Hampshire to justify the enforcement measure. According to the organization, they obtained information from federal border officials that there have been only 21 apprehensions at the New Hampshire border.
State Sen Carrie Gendreau called the ACLU “full of malarkey.” She argued that the numbers are unreliable and disregard the unknown number of gotaways. She also said she has heard from landowners who have reported extensive damage had been caused to their property by migrants crossing from Canada.
Surge in Migrant Crossings
Last month, Mr. Sununu, who led the charge for the criminal trespassing bill along with New Hampshire Attorney General John Formella, said in a statement that New Hampshire has seen a surge in migrant crossings at its northern borders while there has been “federal inaction” in enforcing against it.The U.S. Customs and Border Protection (USBP) recently reported a record number of apprehensions of illegal immigration in an area known as the Swanton Sector.
The 24,000-square-mile territory is made up of sections of New Hampshire, Vermont, and New York.
In a recent post on X, USBP Chief Patrol Agent Robert Garcia reported that more than 12,000 migrants were caught crossing illegally into the sector from Canada last year. Since October alone, Swanton Sector agents have apprehended 3,100 migrants from 55 different countries crossing illegally into the United States, he said.
New Hampshire officials also say the state is seeing an especially high flow of fentanyl over its border.
During a floor debate ahead of the vote on SB 504-FN, state Sen. Sharon Carson testified that out of the 1.2 billion doses of fentanyl seized by border patrol in 2023, 240,00 doses came via the northern borders.
“That is enough to kill almost every single resident in our state’s largest cities in New Hampshire,” said Ms. Carson. She made the comment in favor of a bill she sponsored that established mandatory minimum sentencing requirements for the distribution of fentanyl.
Those in favor of stepping up enforcement against the presence of illegal migrants in New Hampshire have also cited the rising cases of illegal immigrants with violent criminal histories discovered in New Hampshire and adjoining states.
Last August, an illegal immigrant from Brazil, convicted of 11 murders known as the “2015 Curios Massacre” in his home country, was found working as a roofer in the coastal, affluent community of Rye, New Hampshire.
Criminal Histories
An illegal immigrant wanted for human trafficking charges in his home country of Honduras was discovered in Manchester earlier in the year.Several illegal immigrants with violent criminal histories have also been discovered in neighboring states.
Last month, a member of the infamous MS-13 gang was discovered in Massachusetts, a sanctuary state that welcomes undocumented migrants.
New Hampshire appears to be leading a lone charge among the 15 northern border states in curbing illegal immigration.
In addition to criminal trespassing legislation, a pending bill would bar the state and any city or town from adopting sanctuary policies that would prevent the enforcement of federal immigration laws.
Another bill, if passed, would invalidate out-of-state driver’s licenses issued to undocumented immigrants, including those issued in neighboring Massachusetts and Vermont, both of which issue driver’s licenses to undocumented migrants.
The criminal trespassing bill must next win the majority of New Hampshire’s large House of Representatives. Its 400 members are currently almost evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats, who recently introduced a bill to counter the Republican driver’s license ban proposal.
Last year, the New Hampshire legislature budgeted $1.4 million into the state budget at Mr. Sununu’s request to fund increased patrolling of the state’s northern border by a consortium of law enforcement called the Northern Border Alliance Task Force.
The 13 states that border Canada are Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Minnesota, North Dakota, Montana, Idaho, Washington and Alaska.
