Editor’s Note: First is a series about Immigrants in New Hampshire by Katharine Webster. Tomorrow: Part II: New Hampshire Immigrants and the Legal Landscape

By KATHARINE WEBSTER, InDepthNH.org

A pickup truck boxed in by vehicles driven by unidentified agents wearing bulletproof vests and carrying rifles at the Home Depot in Plaistow.

Unmarked SUVs full of agents in tactical gear cruising Elm Street in downtown Manchester and 101 in neighboring Bedford.

Two construction workers from Ecuador disappearing after getting a flat tire on their way to work in Gorham.

A raid by eight unidentified agents on a Mexican restaurant in Concord, less than a mile from the New Hampshire Statehouse, where Gov. Kelly Ayotte signed two bills last month intended to ban “sanctuary cities” and towns.

With a handful of notable exceptions, immigration enforcement actions in New Hampshire have taken place out of the media spotlight. And for the most part, no one who observed these previously unreported incidents was willing to discuss details on the record, for fear of being targeted or putting others at risk.

That’s in part due to the 287(g) cooperation agreements signed by several New Hampshire law enforcement agencies with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), as well as the two bills Ayotte signed on May 22.

Senate Bill 62 says that local governments cannot block law enforcement agencies from entering into such agreements, while the Anti-Sanctuary Act prohibits local governments from enacting laws or policies that could interfere with federal immigration enforcement. Ayotte had previously ordered the state police to cooperate with ICE.

Who Are New Hampshire’s Immigrants?

Immigrants make up 7 percent of the state’s population and about 9 percent of the workforce, because more of them are of working age, says William Gillett, director of public policy and advocacy for the International Institute of New England, which helps resettle refugees and other legal immigrants in Manchester, Boston and Lowell, Massachusetts.

Of those, national figures suggest that only 20 percent have been in the U.S. for less than five years, Gillett says.

“They’re part of our society,” he says.

The International Institute assists refugees under contract with the federal government, including 327 refugees who were resettled in New Hampshire during the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, 2024, Gillett says.

The institute also offers additional services to immigrants, he says. At any given time, about 200 people are enrolled in its English language classes in Manchester, while the waiting list has another 200 people.

Several other agencies also provide services to refugees, asylum seekers and other legal immigrants in the state.

Many immigrants here are from one of 19 countries, including several in Africa and Central America, whose citizens are eligible for temporary protected status (TPS) because of war, high levels of violence or a humanitarian crisis, Gillett says.

Because New Hampshire’s immigrant population is relatively small, it hasn’t been a target for major ICE roundups like those in neighboring Massachusetts and Vermont, Gillett says. But immigrants in the Granite State are afraid just the same, in part because of state politics.

“New Hampshire is certainly setting itself up to be assisting ICE and pursuing the anti-immigrant narrative at the state level,” he says.

An Atmosphere of Fear

Ever since President Trump ordered mass deportations – including some carried out in defiance of court orders – all immigrants, including those with no criminal record who are in the country legally, have been living in fear, says Eva Castillo, director of the New Hampshire Alliance for Immigrants and Refugees.

That fear has been exacerbated by media reports of people being picked up without a warrant, arrests inside courthouses and at mandatory immigration check-ins, and deportations of people with legal status – as well as confrontations with agents who refuse to identify themselves or say whether they are from ICE, the FBI, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the DEA, the ATF or local law enforcement agencies.

“The community is so scared now: You watch TV and all you see is law enforcement all over the place, but you don’t know who’s who anymore,” Castillo says. “Going to church and bringing their kids to school, they’re afraid. They go out the minimum they have to.”

Latinos have been a particular target, with Mexican restaurants in several New Hampshire cities experiencing raids, Castillo says, including El Rodeo on Loudon Road in Concord.

“They came in, eight guys, like they were going to fight the Taliban: full tactical gear, long guns, face covered,” Castillo says. “They refused to identify themselves.”

A staff member answering the phone at the restaurant Thursday confirmed that an immigration raid had taken place, but the restaurant’s owners did not return a message seeking more details.

Ayotte and the Anti-Sanctuary Act’s Republican sponsors say that the bills will help keep New Hampshire residents safe by ensuring that criminals will be deported.

“New Hampshire will never be a sanctuary for criminals, and we will keep working every day to remain the safest state in the nation,” Ayotte said in a statement the day she signed the bills.

State Rep. Joe Sweeney, R-Salem, the state Anti-Sanctuary Act’s chief sponsor, went further, aiming his remarks at anyone in the country illegally. Crossing the border without legal permission and overstaying a visa are civil, not criminal, violations.

“If you are in this nation illegally, you are not welcome in New Hampshire,” Sweeney said in a statement. “Republicans are prioritizing public safety and ensuring that we keep New Hampshire a land of law and order.”

Afghans, Ukrainians and More at Greater Risk

That could soon be a lot more people. The Trump administration is revoking temporary protected status (TPS) for refugees from several countries, including Venezuela, Haiti and Afghanistan, although some of those revocations are being challenged in court.

TPS for Afghans will expire on July 15, although some have special immigrant visas based on their work for the U.S. military. TPS expires after Aug. 3 for Haitians, according to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services website, while it will expire for some Venezuelans in September.

Unless those refugees are already seeking a different status, such as asylum, they are at risk of deportation, says Martha Tecca, interim lead and consultant to the board at SHARe (Supporting and Helping Asylum-seekers and Refugees) VT-NH, a network of organizations that welcomes and supports immigrants in the Upper Valley.

“TPS is a big deal,” Tecca says.

An even bigger deal, even for those who may legally remain in the U.S., is the Trump administration’s new travel ban on 19 countries, Tecca says. There is a full ban on travelers from Afghanistan and Haiti, and a partial ban on people from Venezuela.

“Afghans who worked with the U.S. military … and those who had their families in process to come here, that just got” taken away from them, she says.

Grace Kindeke, New Hampshire program coordinator for the American Friends Service Committee, knows firsthand how painful that is. She came to the U.S. with her mother at age 2, from the Democratic Republic of Congo.

“My mother tried for decades to get her own mother, her own sisters – she’s the oldest of five – and all of their children to come to the U.S., with absolutely no success,” she says.

“My grandmother ended up dying before we could bring her over to the U.S., and had my mother not gotten her citizenship in 2017, she never would have been able to see her mother again.”

Kindeke says it was already nearly impossible for many immigrants to bring family members to the U.S., due to the high cost of legal services and seemingly endless paperwork – and racism.

“That has been the norm, especially for immigrants, especially Black immigrants, to bring their family members over,” she says.