CONCORD – U.S. Attorney Thomas Colantuono, four federal immigration agents and three police chiefs warned Tuesday that a proposed bill would block state and local law enforcement officials from going after suspected terrorists who were also illegal immigrants.
Colantuono said the state might also risk the loss of up to $200,000 that local communities and the state get from the federal government for detaining foreign-born residents unlawfully in this country.
“It is unrealistic in the way law enforcement operates in the 21st century in the wake of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001,” Colantuono said.
“The bill, as written, would be a disaster.”
The legislation (HB 404) – introduced by Rep. Lily Mesa, D-Manchester – would prohibit state and local police from detaining or arresting anyone whose sole offense is the violation of federal immigration laws.
A four-person subcommittee of the House Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee is studying the measure, which the House of Representatives sent back to committee last spring.Speaking at a subcommittee work session Tuesday, Londonderry Police Chief Joseph Ryan said the bill’s adoption would stop his officers from assisting U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents who were detaining suspected aliens at Manchester-Boston Regional Airport.
“To think state and local officers have to turn our backs is contrary to everything I believe in,” Ryan told the subcommittee.
Rep. Timothy Robertson, D-Keene, said police and prosecutors were overreacting.
“It doesn’t say you can’t help the immigration service,” he said. “It says you can’t be the immigration service.”
Hudson Republican Reps. Andrew Renzullo and Jordan Ulery want the House to kill the bill outright in January.
“This is an attempt to create in New Hampshire a sanctuary state for illegal immigrants,” Renzullo said.
But Arnie Alpert of the American Friends Service Committee said it instead seeks to reduce distrust that exists between the immigrant community and some local police departments.
“If the local police are involved in immigration enforcement, there will be an increase in profiling,” Alpert said.
ICE Associate Legal Adviser Jorge Artieda said with only 23,000 beds nationwide to detain illegal aliens, his agency has no desire to indiscriminately lock up anyone without proper papers of citizenship.
“We don’t have the bed space to get everybody,” Artieda testified. “We want the worst of the worst.”
Mesa said she brought forward this proposal to stop profiling of foreign-born residents by local police, which she claimed has occurred in her home city of Manchester.
“We know there are presently police who will stop people on the street and ask for documents whether they are citizens or not,” she said.
Mesa volunteers at the Latin American Center in Manchester. Victims of these incidents are afraid to come forward publicly to speak about them, she said.
“You have turned this whole thing into a debate about undocumented people,” Mesa told the law enforcement executives.
“My intent was to help people who look different like me, have an accent and speak broken English.”
The issue emerged in part from the 2005 ruling of Jaffrey/Peterborough District Court Judge L. Phillips Runyon III, who quashed the bid of police in New Ipswich and Hudson to use state criminal trespass laws to arrest suspected illegal aliens.
The New Hampshire Legislature rejected attempts led by these police chiefs and others to let local enforcement prosecute immigration laws.
Hudson Police Chief Richard Gendron and Lyndeborough Police Department Administrator Richard Darling also lent law enforcement support at Tuesday’s hearing but did not speak.
Immigrant advocates are wary that chiefs in Hudson, Londonderry and the Carroll County sheriff all have expressed a desire to form a memorandum of understanding with ICE officials.
This agreement could allow local police to carry out immigration duties under the supervision of federal officials.
Colantuono said Mesa’s bill would keep local and state police out of investigating a suspected terrorist whose only known offense is his illegal alien status.
“If we suspected someone was operating a bomb factory, we’d want a full SWAT team and the bomb unit to be backing up ICE,” he said.
“This would completely tie the hands of state and local police to assist.”
Mesa said she’s open to changes but noted this bill has sparked a spate of threatening e-mails sent to her. The unknown authors called her “stupid, filthy” and warned she was being watched, she said.
“I understand the fear about 9-11, but I don’t see why we have to blame everybody that is different because of that,” she said. Kevin Landrigan can be reached at 224-8804 or klandrigan@nashuatelegraph.com.
Posted by: Delta784
Stop Federal funding to any state that enacts a sanctuary law. That's the only way to permanently stop this foolishness.
Posted by: justanotherparatrooper
morons
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