Less than a mile south of the New Hampshire border sits the site of the former Days Hotel and Conference Center, a destination that once billed itself as a “full-service hotel” that is “conveniently located between Boston and Manchester.”
Since Oct. 17, 2022, the property has fallen under Bay State control and is home to migrants who illegally entered the United States and made their way to Massachusetts. Within one year, police would respond to the hotel’s Pelham Street address more than 380 times, according to reporting by the Lawrence Eagle-Tribune.
A visit to the property Tuesday yielded little information about who resides there today. A woman working the front desk who declined to give her name would only say the venue is now known as “The Methuen Inn.”
Per a state law enacted in 1983 under then-Gov. Michael Dukakis, Massachusetts is required to provide housing for homeless parents with children and pregnant women. At the time Bay State lawmakers passed it, the so-called “right-to-shelter” law did not reference migrant families who arrived making questionable asylum claims.
But as Massachusetts cities and towns are discovering, it applies now.
New Hampshire state Sen. Darryl Abbas (R-Salem) lives just across the state line from the hotel-turned-shelter. He said the surge in illegal immigration in Massachusetts is affecting his Granite State constituents.
“We’ve got fentanyl pouring in from over the border, and it has to be coming from somewhere,” Abbas told NHJournal. “Look at it this way — are sanctuary policies having an impact? I can tell you those policies certainly aren’t helping things in New Hampshire.”
Abbas said the responsibility for the surge in illegal immigration ultimately rests with the federal government’s handling of U.S. border crossings.
“The immigration laws have not changed [since Biden took office]; the executive orders are what changed,” he said. And Abbas — who often talks about his Italian Catholic mother and his Egyptian Muslim father, his Irish wife, and his multiracial son — objects to politicians interjecting prejudice into the conversation.
“So many Democrats, especially in Massachusetts, try to paint this as a race issue, and that’s inflammatory rhetoric which isn’t helping anybody,” Abbas said.
New Hampshire Republicans like Gov. Chris Sununu support directing more funding to secure the state’s northern Canadian border and sending National Guard members to Eagle Pass, Texas, to address the ongoing crisis at the Mexican border.
Abbas is currently backing a proposal that would outlaw sanctuary immigration policies in New Hampshire. Hanover and Lebanon adopted sanctuary policies in 2020, and both Democrats running for governor have supported sanctuary policies in the past.
“If this bill is not the solution, what is?” Abbas asked. “Will we be a sanctuary state? What do we do if 5,000 migrants show up? They’re here. What do we do? What’s the action plan? Who will pay for it?
“Nobody wants to talk about that. It’s happening in Methuen, Boston, Foxboro, all of these Massachusetts cities and towns, and to think it cannot happen here in New Hampshire is simply naive.”
Republican gubernatorial hopeful Kelly Ayotte has focused much of her attention on the state line shared between Massachusetts and the Granite State. She’s made the slogan “Don’t MASS up New Hampshire” part of her campaign and has taken to social media to challenge former Manchester Mayor Joyce Craig, the current Democrat frontrunner for governor, over her stance on illegal immigration.
“I will never allow New Hampshire to become a sanctuary state,” Ayotte wrote in a recent post on X. “Unlike Sanctuary Craig, I will fight every day to keep the Massachusetts illegal immigrant crisis south of our border.”
Ayotte’s campaign has maintained a running count of the days that have passed without Craig publicly acknowledging whether or not she supports a “sanctuary” approach to illegal immigration. And Craig didn’t help her case with a widely-panned WMUR interview over the weekend in which she repeatedly refused to answer questions about her stance on sanctuary policies or inviting migrants to Massachusetts.
Ayotte told NHJournal on Tuesday that Massachusetts “is threatening our way of life in the Granite State.”
“I said it the day I got in this race,” she added. “Massachusetts’ growing illegal immigrant crisis will lead to even more crime and fentanyl flowing into New Hampshire — leading to more chaos and danger in our communities.”
Craig declined yet again to respond to questions from NHJournal about her stance on immigration policy, as did Executive Councilor Cinde Warmington, who is challenging Craig for the Democratic nomination.
Meanwhile, a visit to the Facebook page of the Days Hotel and Conference Center in Methuen would lead the average traveler to believe it is open for regular business.
“Start 2024 off with incredible savings during our Friends and Family Sale!” a recent post suggests. “Save 20 percent or more on 3+ nights when you book our exclusive Member Rate… Restrictions may apply.”
However, a woman who answered a phone call placed to the number listed on the page said that the hotel was not accepting reservations.
“We are now more of a shelter,” she said. “We are no longer open to hotel guests.”
