Above, Recent demonstration at the Pease Development Authority. ARNIE ALPERT photo

By Arnie Alpert, Active with the Activists

Arnie Alpert spent decades as a community organizer/educator in NH movements for social justice and peace.  Officially retired from the American Friends Service Committee since 2020, he keeps his hands (and feet) in the activist world while writing about past and present social movements.

CONCORD—Immigrants’ rights activists from several New Hampshire cities and towns on Tuesday announced the formation of Sanctuary Communities, a grassroots project to oppose “police state tactics” employed by federal immigration enforcement agencies.

 At a news conference held at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church across the street from the State House in Concord, the group said that while it is now illegal for municipalities to refuse cooperation with ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement), the law cannot prevent Americans from exercising their Constitutional rights to protest, publicize, and lawfully resist the agency’s actions.

“We’re here as people of faith, people of conscience, people of conviction and compassion, who are doing what people have done for millennia: organize to protect community members who are facing persecution, organize to insist on a better world, to insist that our values of love and care and dignity are reflected in how we treat each other, creating circles of support and accompaniment and resources, attempting to match the courage and the leadership of immigrants in this community who are targeted by so much racism and xenophobia and dehumanization,” said Maggie Fogarty, a member of the Seacoast Interfaith Sanctuary Coalition, one of eight New Hampshire groups calling themselves “Sanctuary Communities.”

“We are people from many walks of life and probably a variety of political persuasions,” said Philip Kaifer, representing the Manchester and Merrimack Region Sanctuary Community.  “But our common concern is the fear we have because federal police are interfering with life as we know it,” he continued.  “Our Granite State motto is ’Live Free or Die,’ but we no longer feel so free when we see secret agents—often masked and with no ID —whisking people off our streets and even disappearing them.”

“We are witnessing news headlines that read like something out of Nazi Germany,” said Bob Baker, a former Air Force Intelligence officer who lives in Columbia, near the Canadian border.  “We cannot sit by while lawlessness and indecency are being visited upon us by masked agents sent into our communities from Washington.”

“Let’s talk about due process,” Baker, a retired lawyer, said later in the news conference.  “Every single human being in this country, all they have to be is on the soil, is entitled to due process. That means, in simplest terms, the right to know what the charges are against you when you’re arrested. That’s not happening.”  When people don’t even know what they’re being charged with, they can’t defend themselves, he said.  “Just think about that. That’s wrong,” Baker said.

The Sanctuary Communities groups drew critical responses from Republican Gov. Kelly Ayotte before their news conference had ended, and in press releases from other Republicans later on Tuesday.

In a statement headlined, “New Hampshire is NOT a Sanctuary for Criminals,” Ayotte said, “Threats to law enforcement or efforts to obstruct them will not be tolerated in New Hampshire. We are not a sanctuary for criminals who have come into this country illegally, and the law I signed earlier this year reinforces that. If you disrupt law enforcement activity, you will be prosecuted.”

The Sanctuary Communities project was born several months ago in New Hampshire’s North Country, where J. Larry Brown and Judi Garfinkel, residents of Lancaster, circulated a concept paper stating, “Any community—groups of concerned people from nearby towns, churches and institutions—can informally come together and declare themselves a Sanctuary Community, ready to provide assistance to people whose lives and well-being are threatened by federal security forces. Individual Sanctuary Communities can simply announce themselves publicly and organize to take steps they choose.”  The idea was to spark a grassroots upsurge of groups openly objecting to ICE abuses and providing support for those harmed by them.

“History is clear,” they wrote, “that the only way to thwart growing authoritarian rule is for common people to speak out and resist. The courts alone cannot do it. The media alone cannot do it. Masses of American citizens rising up to oppose heavy-handed tactics is the way to salvage our democracy and to highlight the rule of law.”

From there, Brown and Garfinkel created a website to promote the concept and encourage activist groups to sign up.  At this point, New Hampshire has eight self-designated Sanctuary Communities: North Country, Mt. Washington Valley and Lakes Region, Concord and Capitol Region, Manchester and Merrimack Region, Monadnock, Plymouth Area, Seacoast, and Sunapee/Upper Valley. 

The Sanctuary Communities concept received a boost in August when former Labor Secretary Robert Reich promoted it on his Substack newsletter, calling it “an important way to fight Trump fascism.” 

Brown said they have received hundreds of inquiries from other states, but at this point, only groups in New Hampshire are listed on their website.  “The nice thing about this is that we’re not asking people to join our parade. We’re simply saying, create Sanctuary Communities, but do them in your own way,” Brown said.  According to the website, “The Sanctuary Community movement is not an organization and has no leader. It is an idea around which people can organize themselves, creating groups from towns and communities in an area that the participants define.”

The Monadnock Immigrant Solidarity Collaborative defines itself as “a network of people in the southwest corner of New Hampshire, some of us immigrants, some of us allies, who support our immigrant neighbors.  We believe immigrants enrich and strengthen our communities through their hard work, wisdom and culture.  Our communities are welcoming places and we intend to keep them that way.”?

Any group can declare itself a sanctuary community, the website says, by “organizing a group of 6-10 people from different cities and towns in your area.”  Next, a new group should write a statement of purpose, give themselves a name, decide what actions they will take, publicize their existence, and hold meetings to plan and evaluate its actions.  “Each Sanctuary Community across the nation can operate on its own but in conjunction with sister Communities as national momentum and news coverage builds.”

New Hampshire Sanctuary Communities represented at the press conference say they will engage in activities such as monitoring and videotaping ICE raids; providing witness information to state and national media and local law enforcement; informing houses of worship, veterans groups, health facilities and schools about heavy-handed ICE actions; and writing letters and placing ads to oppose police-state tactics that threaten legal immigrants, neighbors and fellow citizens.

Megan Chapman, a human rights lawyer from Albany, New Hampshire, who is part of the Mount Washington Valley and Lakes Region group, called for a pushback against “efforts to lay the infrastructure for the authoritarian state and terror regime on our own soil.”

“At the beginning of 2025, there was just one ICE detention center in New Hampshire, at the Strafford County Jail,” she said.  “In March, the federal prison in Berlin became the second.  Now ICE is trying to negotiate with three more counties in our state to use their jails to incarcerate our neighbors.  We must push back in Rockingham, Merrimack and Hillsborough County, and any/everywhere else.”

Chapman cited the example of Wells, Maine, where the town has just revoked a 287-G cooperation agreement with ICE, as an example for New Hampshire jurisdictions to follow.  

The group cautions against engaging in any illegal activity, such as physically interfering with ICE operations, but says videotaping ICE agents is lawful.  “It is anticipated that as the number of Sanctuary Communities grows across the nation, the Administration will threaten and intimidate us. It’s a sign of success, don’t let that stop us,” they say.

State Senator Bill Gannon and Representative Joe Sweeney, both Republicans, released statements as well.  “Across New Hampshire, local police departments are working closely with federal officials to enforce the law and keep Granite Staters safe. We have seen the consequences of Democrats’ continual support for open border policies, and we will never have Sanctuary Cities in New Hampshire,” said Gannon, who was the prime sponsor of a bill outlawing “Sanctuary Cities.” 

“The ban on Sanctuary Cities is the law of the land,” said House Deputy Majority Leader Sweeney. “We will not allow activists to skirt the law to create open-border policies in New Hampshire.”

The Sanctuary Community groups are well aware of the law.  Noting in a Q&A handout distributed at the news conference that Ayotte had recently signed a “Sanctuary Cities” prohibition, the group said, “The Governor’s action pertains to municipalities like cities, towns and counties but it does not pertain to individual citizens.  We have a First Amendment right to speak and to organize Sanctuary Communities.  We do not work for the Governor.” 

In response to the governor’s news release, Megan Chapman said it is ICE that is violating the law and the Constitution.  “We do want to be a sanctuary in which people’s rights are upheld and the Constitution is upheld, and that’s what we’re standing for.”

“There’s nothing that we talked about today that is in violation of any New Hampshire or federal law,” Chapman added.  “In fact, what we’re trying to do is uphold the Constitution, uphold its guarantees, uphold the rights that are afforded to the people, and make sure that those are protected against a lot of policies and practices that are happening now in violation of those rights.” 

“For many of us, this is about answering to a higher law, a law that that calls us to care for the vulnerable, to push back against state sponsored violence and persecution,” Maggie Fogarty commented.

“We’re going step by step,” Larry Brown said as the news conference closed.  “This is what citizen movements are about. They grow and they take turns here and there. We don’t know where this is going.”

Success is by no means assured, Brown said.  “This is truly the David and Goliath moment in our history. But let us all get organized. Let us work together and see what we can do.”