Several immigrant advocates testified against a proposal to stiffen penalties for illegally "squatting" on someone's private property. Elliot Berry, insert, worked on landlord-tenant issues for nearly 40 years with the New Hampshire Legal Assistance until his retirement last month. Berry said the proposal language was badly flawed and could harm innocent renters who operate without a signed lease.
Several immigrant advocates testified against a proposal to stiffen penalties for illegally "squatting" on someone's private property. Elliot Berry, insert, worked on landlord-tenant issues for nearly 40 years with the New Hampshire Legal Assistance until his retirement last month. Berry said the proposal language was badly flawed and could harm innocent renters who operate without a signed lease.
CONCORD — A key House committee is expected Wednesday to vote on a significant rewrite to the Senate-approved ban (SB 563) on sanctuary city policies.
House Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee Chairman Terry Roy, R-Deerfield, said that he wants to strip the bill down to a requirement that upon arresting someone for a New Hampshire criminal offense that local police honor the request from federal immigration officials to detain someone believed to be in this country illegally.
On a related matter, several housing advocates spoke out Monday against an amendment Roy had first wanted to add to the legislation.
The amendment would permit police to forcibly remove someone who is illegally “squatting” on another’s private property.
Roy said he’s going to try and find another legislative home for this idea.
If he wants to add it to a different bill, it will face an additional hearing later this session, he said.
As for the original bill the state Senate passed, Roy said he wants to narrow the scope.
“There are parts to this bill that are very broad,” Roy said.
For example, the rewrite Roy said he will propose for the committee to vote on Wednesday would strike a sentence that reads, “A law enforcement agency shall use best efforts to support the enforcement of federal immigration law.”
Senate sponsors pursued the bill because Hanover, Lebanon and Harrisville have “welcoming ordinances” that limit law enforcement officials’ cooperation with officials of Immigration, Customers and Enforcement (ICE) who have a detainer request.
“Several departments have been ordered not to honor or notify ICE; that type of lawlessness can’t be allowed in our state,” Roy said.
The Senate bill goes into too much detail that’s not important, he continued.
“I think a lot of this is fluff and semantics,” Roy said of the Senate bill. “I am not interested in defining what sanctuary is and what sanctuary isn’t. Are officers cooperating with immigration when they make a detainer request? That’s it.”
During a work session, Roy said he sought changes in language in hopes that they would earn the support of Democrats on his panel.
It did not appear compromise between the two sides would be likely, however.
Parties at odds
A group of police chiefs that includes Manchester, Nashua and Hudson, said the legislation wasn’t necessary and could be counterproductive.
Rep. Loren Selig, D-Durham, said terms used in the bill were a problem.
“This refers to people in a way that I find offensive. The underlying premise of the bill is to dehumanize people,” Selig said.
Rep. Karen Reid, R-Deering, said the bill would make the community safer and that’s important for the immigrant population.
“I feel if someone is stopped and they have a detainer, we are protecting the public as a whole, including the immigrant community,” Reid said.
Several Democrats on the panel said there was no serious illegal immigration problem in the state.
“You are trying to solve a problem that really doesn’t exist for us,” said Rep. Linda Harriott-Gathright, D-Nashua.
Roy and other Republicans pointed to the case of Antonio Jose De Abreu Vidal Filho, 29, an illegal immigrant convicted of murdering 11 people in his home country of Brazil.
Federal immigration authorities took Filho into custody last summer while he was working at a roofing job in Rye.
Filho was a member of the country’s military police who fled his country after his conviction.
He came into the U.S. legally, but illegally overstayed his visa, according to federal authorities.
Rep. John Sytek, R-Salem, agreed with trimming back the Senate bill.
“There is a lot of foam here and very little beer,” Sytek said. “I don’t think any of this is necessary. The situation in New Hampshire is working fine. The only thing I want to prevent, if it is occurring, is the aggressive prohibition of a local police department not honoring an ICE detainer. I have no other interest in the bill.”
Immigration advocates maintain the bill would be an unfunded mandate for city and town police departments.
Rep. Dennis Mannion, R-Salem, is a police officer and said it’s not much effort for agencies to honor these detainer requests.
“It’s just a phone call,” Mannion said, likening it to police detaining someone wanted by another law enforcement agency for a crime committed in a different state
Rep. Jeffrey Tenczar, R-Pelham and a retired state police officer, recalled an ICE detainer popping up after he had stopped a motorist for speeding only to learn the individual was a “big-time drug dealer” back in his home country.
Several opponents on the committee noted the detainers were civil matters while out-of-state requests to detain someone are criminal in nature.
