Valley News – Republicans have made illegal immigration a top issue in NH – sometimes with misinformation

Gov. Chris Sununu has poured nearly $2.3 million into tackling what he calls an illegal immigration crisis on two fronts: $1.4 million for a law enforcement unit along the state’s 60-mile border with Canada, and $850,000 for the deployment this month of 15 National Guard officers. troops to Eagle Pass, Texas.

Meanwhile, Republican lawmakers and candidates are making illegal immigration a top issue in the State House and on the campaign trail, often making their case based on misinformation and untested anecdotal evidence.

“Every town is a border town,” they say.

It resonates with Granite State voters. Last month, nearly 43 percent of respondents told the UNH Survey Center that they are “very” or “somewhat” concerned about undocumented immigrants consuming state resources, costing taxpayers money and committing crimes.

But are these concerns supported by data and facts? Often not, and in some cases the data contradicts claims about illegal immigration.

Fact-checking immigration claims is difficult

The southern border is more than 2,000 miles from New Hampshire. Here’s why the state’s Republicans are making illegal immigration a top issue in their campaign here:

Last month, 43 percent of Granite Staters surveyed by the UNH Survey Center said illegal immigration is a “very serious” or “somewhat serious” problem in New Hampshire. That rose to 83 percent when asked about illegal immigration in the United States.

They cited taking resources from Americans, the cost to taxpayers and crime as their top concerns about people living in the country illegally.

Voters looking to fact-check candidates’ claims face a challenge because there is endless data and it is complicated to decipher.

For example, Republican gubernatorial candidate Chuck Morse of Salem claimed in a campaign email last week that 10 million people have crossed the southern border illegally since President Joe Biden took office. The data contradicts that.

First, U.S. Customs and Border Protection tracks “encounters,” not people, and does not account for people encountered more than once.

Then, between the start of Biden’s term and March, that agency reported 9.64 million encounters nationwide, including 8 million at the southern border. And these figures also include people who may be granted asylum.

Edward Alden, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, said in a media briefing last week that 70 to 80 percent of asylum seekers overcome the first hurdle, which is convincing a Border Patrol agent that they have a credible fear of death, torture, or persecution because of their race, religion or belief. About 40 percent of those people end up getting asylum from a court, he said.

Here’s what we know about undocumented immigrants in New Hampshire.

■According to the Pew Research Center, between 10,000 and 15,000 undocumented immigrants have lived in the state since 2000. In 2021, they represented about 1.7 percent of the state’s workforce, mostly in professional settings.

■They cannot get a driver’s license or tuition at state colleges and universities.

■ Neither adults nor children are eligible for Medicaid.

■There appears to be no data showing how often undocumented immigrants are criminally charged and convicted. If national data is any indication, the percentage is low.

The CATO Institute, a public policy research organization, reported in 2020 that data collected by the Texas Department of Public Safety showed that the criminal conviction rate of undocumented people in that state was 45 percent lower than that of those born in the U.S. . The Institute published another study showing that undocumented immigrants in Texas commit murder at slightly lower rates than native-born Americans, 2.4 percent compared to 2.8 percent.

Americans, not immigrants, are smuggling fentanyl

Sununu cited human trafficking and terrorism as reasons to improve security at the southern border. A Fentanly overdose prompted him to send New Hampshire Guard soldiers to Texas, he said. In 2022, fentanyl caused 224 of the state’s 463 drug overdose deaths and contributed to many more.

“You can see exactly what’s coming from the southern border and trace it into virtually every city and town,” he told lawmakers in February, asking for $850,000 to send troops to Eagle Pass. “It’s very real. It has an impact and affects families today.”

Drug trafficking has also fueled debate in the State House, where lawmakers are passing bills aimed at tightening immigration enforcement.

Americans, not undocumented immigrants, are smuggling fentanyl into the country.

In 2022, data from the US Sentencing Commission showed that Americans accounted for nearly 90 percent of convicted fentanyl drug traffickers.

That same year, 96 percent of fentanyl seizures occurred at official ports of entry, not along migration routes between checkpoints, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection reports analyzed by the Washington Post. And almost all of these attacks – almost 90 percent – ​​occurred in California and Texas.

The conflict between facts and talking points has led Democrats to view Sununu’s deployment to Texas — and Republican claims about undocumented immigrants — as political stunts.

“I think it’s part of former President Trump telling Congress not to pass the bipartisan (immigration) bill because it’s an issue he wants to campaign on,” said Sen. Cindy Rosenwald, a Nashua Democrat who voted against Sununu’s $850,000 request. The border “often seems to be involved, even when you think that’s not what the topic is about. So I think it’s all part of fueling former President Trump’s desire to beat up President Biden over this.”

Another year, another sanctuary law

Sending National Guard soldiers to the Texas border isn’t the state’s only response to the surge of undocumented migrants entering the county.

Republicans in the House of Representatives and the Senate are now backing a bill that would ban communities in New Hampshire from adopting a so-called “sanctuary city” policy that bars their police from cooperating with federal immigration authorities.

If history is any indication, the bill, which passed the Senate along party lines in March, could face a tougher battle in the House of Representatives, where Republicans have only a seven-seat majority. Even in the years when Republicans controlled both chambers, lawmakers have defeated nearly a dozen similar bills since 2006.

Senate Bill 563 would require local police to make their “best efforts” to comply with federal immigration enforcement. Opponents of the bill include not only the ACLU of New Hampshire and church leaders, but also several police chiefs who worry that taking on immigration enforcement would undermine their relationships with immigrant communities.

Senator Bill Gannon, a Republican from Sandown and the bill’s sponsor, sees it differently. He told a House committee on Wednesday that the bill is a necessary public safety tool to identify what he called “bad hombres” who have committed crimes and are in the country illegally. It’s a phrase that former President Donald Trump introduced during a 2016 debate.

“I’m sure most undocumented immigrants are looking for a better life, just like all our grandparents and great-grandparents were,” he said. “And they’re here to raise their families and live the American dream. Unfortunately, they have not been vetted.”

Gannon cited the arrest last year in Rye of a man who had fled Brazil, where he had been convicted of multiple murders.

“He worked on a painting crew, had lunch with everyone, went out to restaurants and drove around my towns,” Gannon said. “When you have individual cities (adopting sanctuary city policies), you endanger the other cities.”

Gannon mentioned Keene and Lebanon as two cities that have adopted policies that say local police officers “shall not cooperate with federal authorities.”

That’s not entirely correct.

Keene and Lebanon have a broad welcome policy, not a “sanctuary city” policy, their city managers said. Neither policy prohibits police from cooperating with federal immigration officials in criminal cases.

“We’re being accused of harboring terrorists, which is completely untrue,” said Lebanon City Manager Shaun Mulholland, a former Allenstown police chief. “If people are wanted for terrorism, which is a crime, we will certainly detain them and turn them over to federal authorities.”

What neither city will do is cooperate with federal immigration officials to enforce civil immigration rules, including detaining someone based solely on their immigration status. It is a civil offense – not a crime – to be in the country without papers, unless the person is here after being deported.

Lebanon’s policy also prohibits its police officers from allowing federal immigration authorities to use the station to investigate civilian immigration cases. Mulholland, like the police chiefs who wrote a letter to senators, said local law enforcement has no legal authority to enforce federal immigration law.

Mulholland said he would have explained this if he had heard from Gannon or another senator who said the city is obstructing enforcement of federal immigration laws.

“They never asked, ‘What are you doing there?’ he said, “which is very, very frustrating when they make these kinds of accusations.”

Bulletin writer Annmarie Timmins will report this week from Eagle Pass, Texas, in partnership with New Hampshire Public Radio, as she follows the 15 National Guard soldiers sent by Governor Chris Sununu to assist with border patrol. You can find her reporting in New Hampshire Bulletin and NHPR, both on air and online.