New Hampshire progressives who released an open letter to Gov.-elect Kelly Ayotte challenging her pro-deportation stance got the facts wrong about her position. The bigger question is whether they’ve gotten the politics wrong, too.
Ayotte won a nine-point victory in November running on a pro-law and order platform that included supporting increased immigration enforcement and opposing the sanctuary city policies embraced by Granite State Democrats. She supports the incoming Trump administration’s plans for aggressive immigration law enforcement and deportations.
“Part of the way we keep New Hampshire safe is making sure that we have dangerous criminals off our streets. If there are those (illegal immigrants) on the terror watch list, they shouldn’t be on our streets, and they shouldn’t be in our country. So this is about keeping New Hampshire safe, and that’s always been my top priority,” Ayotte told WMUR’s Adam Sexton in an interview that aired on Sunday.
That interview inspired a coalition of anti-immigration-enforcement activists to write Ayotte.
“We are prompted to communicate with you based on remarks you made during a Dec. 13, 2024 interview … referencing your position on New Hampshire’s potential involvement with President-elect Trump’s cruel threats to embark on mass deportations,” the letter reads. “During that interview you indicated that you will ‘support efforts to conduct a mass deportation of undocumented immigrants.’
“We are deeply opposed to New Hampshire involving state and local law enforcement officers in any enforcement of federal immigration law violations which are largely civil in nature,” they wrote, adding, “We ask that you put the interests and well-being of all New Hampshire residents first and decline to participate in any federal mass deportation efforts.”
In fact, Ayotte never made the “mass deportation of undocumented immigrants” statement attributed to her in the letter. Asked by NHJournal for the source of this quote, the letters’ authors declined to respond. Those authors include the NH Alliance for Immigrants and Refugees, NH Immigrant Rights Network and the NH Immigrant Solidarity Network.
In a recent Fox News interview, incoming border czar Tom Holman described the Trump deportation plan.
“We’re going to focus on public safety threats and national security threats first,” Homan said. “And then fugitives — those who crossed the border illegally and had great due process, at great taxpayer expense, by the way, and were ordered removed by an immigration judge.”
More than 100 social justice activists signed the letter to Ayotte, including state Rep. Loren Selig (D-Durham) and the American Friends Service Committee of New Hampshire. Several signatories have opposed increased law enforcement in general, including backing the Defund The Police movement.
Ayotte told NHJournal she’s not backing down from her pro-enforcement stance.
“The same people that wanted to defund the police now want us to not enforce our laws. Getting dangerous criminals, gang members, and terrorists off our streets and out of our country is common sense. We cannot and will not allow New Hampshire to go the way of Massachusetts, where sanctuary policies have created a safe haven for dangerous criminals who put communities at risk.”
Massachusetts headlines regularly feature stories of illegal immigrants accused of violent crimes — including sexual assaults on children — who’ve been released by local law enforcement under the state’s sanctuary policies. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents are then forced to track them down to get them off the streets and into custody.
That’s the policy advocated in the letter to Ayotte.
“There is no need for New Hampshire law enforcement entities to step outside of their primary obligations to protect the people of New Hampshire, regardless of citizenship status,” they wrote.
Asked if that means New Hampshire law enforcement should not inform ICE when an illegal alien charged with a violent crime is being released, the authors declined to answer.
Polls show Americans overwhelmingly support increased enforcement, and far more support illegal immigrations being deported than being allowed to remain in the U.S. An Economist/YouGov poll taken just before November’s election found Americans favored “arresting and deporting millions of illegal immigrants” by 55 to 33 percent.
And last week, Reuters reported on its latest poll on the issue: “Americans Less Welcoming of Immigrants Without Legal Status.” They found support for illegal immigration has fallen during the Biden presidency.
That may be a result of the Biden administration’s record-setting performance on immigration. As The New York Times reported last week, “The immigration surge of the past few years has been the largest in U.S. history, surpassing the great immigration boom of the late 1800s and early 1900s.
“Annual net migration — the number of people coming to the country minus the number leaving — averaged 2.4 million people from 2021 to 2023, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Total net migration during the Biden administration is likely to exceed eight million people,” the Times reported.
Voters told pollsters border security and immigration enforcement were among the most important issues in November, and that they overwhelmingly supported Trump and Republicans to address the issue more than Democrats.
Rather than moderate their policy positions, Democrats have so far held their pro-sanctuary-city ground.
Democrats have not changed their policy stance, however. In Massachusetts, Gov. Maura Healey and Boston Mayor Wu have both reaffirmed their support for sanctuary policies. And former New Hampshire state Sen. Lou D’Allesandro (D-Manchester) recently told radio host Jack Heath he expects every Democrat in the state legislature to vote against a ban on sanctuary cities.
