New Hampshire is on a growing list of states requiring some local cooperation with federal immigration enforcement.
New Hampshire Governor Kelly Ayot has signed a bill banning so-called “sanctuary” policies designed to prevent local police from working with federal immigration authorities.
“New Hampshire has no sanctuary cities,” Ayot declared at the bill signing ceremony, adjacent to lawmakers and sheriffs from across the state. “Period. The end of the story.”
House Bill 511, the first measure, requires local governments to comply with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detainees “the ability to do so safely as (inside) as possible.” Detainees usually ask local prisons to hold arrested or convicted individuals for up to 48 hours to allow federal agents to pick them up for deportation.
The bill also bans blanket reserve policies that ignore federal immigration directives. It also prohibits asking local police if someone under their custody is a citizen unless the individual is under investigation for violating new Hampshire laws.
The second measure, Senate Bill 62, says state or local governments should not allow law enforcement agencies to enter into voluntary contracts with ICE. They also allow the county jail to be held for up to two more days after the local or state charges are resolved if they are subject to ice detention.
Local governments violating this second law may be fined up to 25% of the total state funds they receive.
Both laws are set to be fully effective in January 2026.
The move was repeated in her inaugural address, fulfilling the promise of Ayott’s major campaign last fall. In that speech, the Republican governor called Massachusetts a “warning story,” highlighting a serious burden on taxpayers as a Democratic-led neighbour state tried to take care of an unprecedented influx of illegal immigration.
Massachusetts Governor Maura Healy explicitly states that her state is not a sanctuary state and does not get in the way of federal immigration agents at work. However, Healy also made it clear that state police will not support federal deportation efforts. Several cities in Massachusetts, including Boston and Cambridge, have declared sanctuary status.
Massachusetts is implementing an over-emergency shelter system that implements state shelter rights policies that guarantee temporary housing, food and health care for eligible families regardless of immigration situation. Since 2022, the state has contracted with hotels and motels as emergency shelters, with authorities estimated that it would require more than $1 billion to float the system until the end of fiscal year 2025.
In February, Healy signed a supplementary budget allotting an additional $425 million to support shelter services. The funds came after Republicans’ suggestion that they strengthened criminal history checks for shelter residents and that ice access to the shelter was denied by Democrats.
“This is what New Hampshire ran to prevent Massachusetts from walking the path of the billion-dollar immigration crisis,” Ayot said Thursday.
New Hampshire is currently on a growing list of states that have enacted anti-Century Acts. More than 20 states, including Alabama, Florida, Texas and Georgia, have laws requiring federal immigration enforcement and at least some local cooperation, according to the Immigration Law Resource Center, legal advocacy group.
On the other side, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington are taking action against local involvement in immigration enforcement.
