After a gunman opened fire on an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility in Dallas on Wednesday morning, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz pointed out it was the third shooting targeting border enforcement agencies. Then he made a heartfelt plea.
“This must stop. To every politician who is using rhetoric demonizing ICE and demonizing CBP, stop!… Your political opponents are not Nazis.”
It’s advice Granite State Democrats are unlikely to follow.
Since 2018, New Hampshire Democrats have taken a hardline approach on immigration, opposing enforcement, defending sanctuary cities, and comparing immigration enforcement to Nazi Germany.
As of late Wednesday, little was known about the shooter, 29-year-old Joshua Jahn. He had a marijuana conviction in 2016 and was sentenced to a fine and probation. According to FBI Director Kash Patel, he left behind bullets with “Anti-ICE” on the casings. Patel posted a photo of the bullets on social media.
“For months, we’ve been warning politicians and the media to tone down their rhetoric about ICE law enforcement before someone was killed,” Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said. “This shooting must serve as a wake-up call to the far-left that their rhetoric about ICE has consequences. Comparing ICE day-in and day-out to the Nazi Gestapo, the Secret Police, and slave patrols has consequences.”
That’s the rhetoric that New Hampshire Democrats have been using during the Trump era.
In 2018, Trump’s first midterm, candidates in the 1st Congressional District Democratic primary called ICE agents the “Gestapo” and claimed they were running “children’s concentration camps.”
During the 2024 campaign for governor, Democratic Party Chairman Ray Buckley posted a social media message calling GOP candidate Kelly Ayotte a “fascist fearmonger” over her focus on the surge of illegal crossings at the northern border. It echoes Buckley’s previous claim that Ayotte’s opposition to sanctuary city policies is “thinly veiled racism.”
During the debate over New Hampshire’s ban on sanctuary cities passed earlier this year, state Rep. Chris Muns (D-Hampton) told his fellow House members that the legislation could be a “slippery slope” to seeing young people “picked up off the street” and “taken to a camp” like in Nazi Germany.
In a similar vein, state Sen. Shannon Chandley (D-Amherst) compared immigration enforcement to notorious actions of racism in the past.
“Would I have spoken up against the persecution of the Jews during the build-up to World War II?” Chandley asked during the Senate’s debate over the legislation. “Would I have defended my Japanese neighbors from internment camps, and would I have raised my voice to oppose Jim Crow laws?”
When ICE agents peacefully arrested an illegal immigrant convicted of DUI in Manchester this summer, state Rep. Heath Howard (D-Strafford) described it as an “abduction” and “inhumane.” Howard is running in the NH-01 Democratic primary.
And perhaps the most extreme language came from state Rep. David Meuse (D-Portsmouth), who said ICE and other immigration enforcement agents were engaged in “state terrorism” against “anyone with a foreign accent or different skin color.”
The message made its way to leftwing rallies in Concord, Manchester, and Portsmouth this spring and summer, where signs reading “Abolish ICE” and “F*** ICE” were common. So were Democratic candidates and officials like U.S. Reps. Maggie Goodlander and Chris Pappas, along with Maura Sullivan and Stefany Shaheen.
After Wednesday’s attack on the ICE facility, New Hampshire House Majority Leader Rep. Jason Osborne (R-Auburn) released a statement calling on House Democrats “to immediately withdraw their slate of bills aimed at restricting cooperation with federal immigration enforcement agencies in light of the recent deadly shooting in Dallas.”
Osborne released a list of bills filed by House Democrats for the 2026 session, which deal with immigration enforcement and cooperation with federal officials. Among the legislation were bills sponsored by House Minority Leader Alexis Simpson (D-Exeter) and Rep. Buzz Scherr (D-Portsmouth), as well as Rep. Meuse.
All three declined to respond to requests for comment.
“At a time when our nation is already reeling from evil political violence, the last thing New Hampshire should be doing is advancing bills that would tie the hands of our public safety professionals,” Osborne said.
