CONCORD, N.H. — It’s been three and a half years since the Community Church of Durham, N.H., joined the sanctuary movement, offering a safe place for immigrants needing shelter.
And even with the Trump administration’s orders to increase deportations, search for immigrants in schools and churches, and strip protected status from Venezuelans and Haitians, Rev. David Grishaw-Jones said he is standing firm: The church will continue to serve as a temporary home for an asylum-seeker threatened with deportation.
“Our commitment to him is keeping him safe,” said Grishaw-Jones.
That island of safety could soon become even more isolated. While other New England states resist Trump’s anti-immigrant agenda, New Hampshire is aligning with it, with state Republican lawmakers, and some Democrats, seeking to ban sanctuary policies. The ban would prohibit local governments from limiting cooperation with federal immigration agents, making New Hampshire the first New England state to enact such a measure.
The state’s effort to ban sanctuary policies flies in the face of protections New Hampshire has worked on for 15 years, said Maggie Fogarty, an immigrant rights advocate.
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Also disheartening, Fogarty said, is that unlike other New England states, the majority of New Hampshire’s elected officials are looking for ways to work with Trump on efforts that target immigrants. Massachusetts, Maine, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Connecticut all sued to block Trump’s attempt to end birthright citizenship, for example. But not New Hampshire, where state police have applied to be deputized as immigration agents.
Newly elected Republican Governor Kelly A. Ayotte has made cracking down on illegal immigration a priority, repeatedly asking lawmakers to send her legislation banning sanctuary policies.
Now both the House and Senate have passed their own versions of legislation doing so.
House Bill 511 passed the House in February with nearly unanimous support. It bans blanket policies against compliance with immigration detainers for inmates, and requires local law enforcement agencies to comply with immigration detainers for people who have allegedly committed a crime.
In March, the Senate passed Senate Bill 71 in a 16-8 vote along party lines. It bars local governments from getting in the way of state or federal law enforcement carrying out immigration law, and it allows the attorney general to sue jurisdictions found in violation. It also gives county corrections departments permission to hold people an additional 48 hours after state charges are resolved to deliver them to federal custody.
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“This signifies a major cultural shift where federal priorities are now overtaking local needs in the Granite State,” said Amanda P. Azad, policy director at the ACLU of New Hampshire, in a statement after the House passed its anti-sanctuary bill in February.
While there is no legal definition of a sanctuary policy, it has become a political shorthand for cities that limit local cooperation with federal immigration authorities. That can mean limiting communication between local law enforcement and ICE, or local authorities refusing to hold someone an extra 48 hours to hand them over to ICE.
Ayotte said banning this kind of policy is a matter of public safety.
“That’s important, that we’re all working together to keep New Hampshire safe, to keep our border secure, and then also to make sure that we’re not in a position where New Hampshire becomes a sanctuary state,” she said in a January interview.
The prime sponsor of the House bill to ban sanctuary cities said the policies hinder federal immigration enforcement.
“Across the country, so-called sanctuary policies have created challenges for law enforcement, undermining their ability to work collaboratively with federal agencies,” said Representative Joseph Sweeney, a Salem Republican, when introducing the bill in January.
New England states have taken different approaches to regulating sanctuary policies. New Hampshire is the only state in New England where Republicans control the state House, Senate, and Governor’s office.
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Vermont, which has Democratic majorities in the Legislature, is the only other New England state with a Republican governor, Phil Scott, who has said he did not vote for Trump. Vermont passed a state law in 2017 prohibiting state and local government officials from sharing information about immigration status with the federal government.
Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island are identified as “sanctuary” states, while Maine and New Hampshire have taken “no position” on the matter, according to the National Congress of State Legislatures in Denver.
Democratic Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey has rejected the idea that Massachusetts is a “sanctuary” state, even though the state’s Supreme Judicial Court ruled in 2017 that court officers did not have the authority to arrest or detain someone based solely on a federal civil immigration detainer. A handful of cities and towns, including Amherst, Boston, Cambridge, Chelsea, Concord, Newton, Northampton, and Somerville, have their own policies limiting cooperation with ICE.
“Officials here follow the law. We are not a sanctuary state,” Healey told reporters in January. She said officials in Massachusetts are ready to help investigate and prosecute people who commit crimes in the state.
Ragini Shah, director of Suffolk University’s Immigrant Justice Clinic in Boston, said in Massachusetts there has been a mixed response to the Trump administration’s mass deportation efforts.
On the one hand, she said there’s been a push for the Legislature to pass measures to protect immigrants, such as a bill to restrict police cooperation with federal immigration authorities. But there have also been efforts to undo the Supreme Judicial Court’s 2017 ruling. A Republican proposal, for example, seeks to allow law enforcement to comply with ICE detainers, which its backers call a direct response to the 2017 ruling.
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And, Shah said, Massachusetts has stood up to some parts of Trump’s agenda, like suing over his effort to end birthright citizenship.
“They’re signaling in important ways they’re protective and trying to be welcoming,” she said of Healey’s administration.
Connecticut has a 2019 law preventing state and local law enforcement from arresting or detaining someone with a civil immigration detainer, unless there’s a warrant, the individual is a convicted felon, or on a federal terrorist list. The law also limits how local law enforcement can communicate with federal immigration authorities about these cases. While some Republican lawmakers are trying to roll back the 2019 law, the CT Mirror reported, they’re unlikely to succeed given Democratic supermajorities in the Legislature.
In Rhode Island, the governor enacted a policy in 2014 instructing the Department of Corrections not to honor an ICE detainer without a warrant, according to the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Recently, Democratic Governor Daniel McKee said he will “stand by” people in the state who lack legal status, noting that state police will continue working with federal immigration officials on criminal matters.
Because policies in New Hampshire have been adopted at a local level, there’s a patchwork approach across the state. But even according to those advocating against sanctuary policies, the vast majority of New Hampshire cities, towns, and counties have no such policy.
Shari Rendall, New Hampshire’s engagement director for Federation for American Immigration Reform, a national group seeking to reduce immigration, said there are 10 jurisdictions around the state with these policies that “provide a safe haven in which illegal aliens can work and live without fear of apprehension by federal immigration authorities.”
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“Sanctuary policies come in all shapes and sizes,” Rendall told lawmakers during a committee hearing in January. “Some are written, some are not. Some are enacted through local laws, while some are welcoming resolutions.”
At the Community Church of Durham, the message is clear: “Refugees and immigrants are welcome here.” The words are featured prominently on the church website.
Grishaw-Jones said in the case of an ICE raid, members of the church have already signed up to come to the church to peacefully support those targeted. And, he said, the congregation has raised $100,000 for legal assistance. One immigrant lives at an apartment connected to the church, where he works as a church sexton, opening the building in the morning and closing it at night. He spends his days working hard at another community job so he can send money home to his family, Grishaw-Jones said.
“In my experience, the sanctuary tradition brings out the very best in New Hampshire,” he said. “I think the best of us is this capacity for human compassion and kindness and for sharing our resources with folks who are in trouble.”
Grishaw-Jones said attempting to ban sanctuary cities puts the state on the wrong path.
“We can do so much better than this,” he said.
Amanda Gokee can be reached at amanda.gokee@globe.com. Follow her @amanda_gokee.