Voters in several New Hampshire towns weighed in this week on whether their local police departments should continue cooperating with federal immigration efforts under so-called 287g agreements. The votes saw mixed results, even as final decisions remain with local police chiefs.
Gorham resident Abby Evankow gathered signatures in her town to introduce a warrant article ahead of this week’s town meeting that would tell the Gorham police department to no longer help ICE with immigration enforcement. She worked with the ACLU and the North Country Sanctuary Community on the article, which recommended the department withdraw from its 287g agreement.
“Like every town in New Hampshire, our property taxes are going through the roof,” she said. “So why should our local property taxes be spent on federal immigration? That's just wrong. And if they're working on federal immigration, they're not working on why we hired them.”
The voting results were mixed. The article passed in Gorham, as it did in the town of Ossipee. In Troy, voters moved to table their article, after arguing that it was not the right format for voters to weigh in. The vote was tied in Carroll — technically a failed vote.
In all cases, the articles were not legally binding, meaning the final decision still rests with the local police chief. Ossipee Chief Donald Babbin said he plans on continuing his department’s partnership with ICE. He has a background as a Customs and Border Protection officer and decided to join the program a year ago. He said it has a lot of benefits, including additional training for his officers and better communication with federal partners.
He said Ossipee includes through 17 miles of Route 16, the main pass through to the North Country. He said his department only used the agreement once in response to a domestic violence call.
“We're not going banging down doors looking for illegal aliens. We're not stopping motorists based on their race. We're not doing any of that,” he said. “Our primary function is to handle every call that comes into this PD and work from there.”
Even though the warrant article vote was tied in Carroll, petitioner Cathy Fulkerson said that this was a positive first step and she plans to continue advocating against the program. She started collecting signatures at the local transfer station after the Carroll police worked with ICE to detain seven residents late last year.
“I don't think that's considered a failure at all,” she said. “Especially considering almost every single person that I talked to didn't know that our police department was cooperating with ICE, and they didn't know about the ICE raid.”
Voters in Hampton passed a pre-emptive article against a hypothetical 287(g) agreement in the future.
