When Democrats on the House Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee voted unanimously to support the GOP’s proposed ban on sanctuary cities in New Hampshire, the most surprising endorsement came from outspoken progressive Rep. David Meuse (D-Portsmouth.)
After NHJournal’s reporting on the vote, Meuse posted a message on Facebook explaining his decision.
Among his defenses for backing a sanctuary city ban was his claim that “As amended, the bill has the support of ACLU-NH and the Immigrant Rights Network here in New Hampshire.”
Meuse’s report that the state’s ACLU was on board with the sanctuary city ban generated a GOP response.
“I was surprised as an anyone to see House Democrats vote with Republicans in support of Trump’s immigration and deportation policies by banning sanctuary cities. I am hearing through contacts that the ACLU-NH is on board!” tweeted Rep. Ross Berry (R-Weare).
“Has the ACLU-NH turned over a new leaf?” asked House Majority Leader Jason Osborne (R-Auburn)
But hours later, the ACLU-NH posted its own message denouncing the legislation Meuse backed.
“Late Friday, a House committee passed a harmful bill that would require local police to aid in federal immigration enforcement by executing ICE detainers – which are not signed by a judge and do not go through due process,” they wrote. “Harmful policies like these, that embrace cruelty and sow seeds of distrust between local communities and law enforcement, have no place in New Hampshire.”
Soon after, Meuse edited out the reference to the ACLU-NH from his post.
Meanwhile, Republicans remained puzzled by the claim that the amended bill doesn’t ban sanctuary city policies.
“The amendment to the bill makes changes to the language that make it less harmful and narrow the scope of the bill to already incarcerated people. Without the amendment, New Hampshire police would have been required to hand over to ICE any undocumented immigrant they encounter with an immigration detainer out on them—even those who have not committed a crime,” Meuse claimed.
Not so, says the bill’s sponsor Rep. Joe Sweeney (R-Salem).
“It still fully bans sanctuary cities,” Sweeney said.
The bill explicitly defines “inmates” as “a person in the custody of a law enforcement agency,” which is every person local law enforcement might be asked to detain by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
“The bill’s intended purpose is to ban sanctuary cities and have cooperation between local departments and ICE,” Sweeney noted.
New Hampshire currently has a handful of municipalities and law enforcement agencies that have enacted sanctuary policies, including the cities of Hanover and Lebanon.
Meuse insists voting for the sanctuary city ban was a “harm reduction measure.”
“Since Republicans may have had the votes to pass this legislation unamended, Democrats on the committee worked hard and worked together to try to mitigate and minimize its potential harm,” Meuse wrote.
Political professionals, however, say it’s a response to the overwhelming public opposition to Democrat’s anti-immigration-enforcement stance.
“The GOP has turned an 11-point deficit on who Americans trust on immigration in Trump’s first term at roughly this point into a 22-point lead right now,” says CNN’s data analyst Harry Enten. “Moreover, the percentage who say we’re on the right track on immigration is up 23 points under Trump than it was under Biden.”
