Come next year, the Peterborough Police Department – along with other local police departments – could be required to assist federal immigration enforcement, against the wishes of Peterborough residents who testified against it in Concord.

State senators on Thursday sent House Bill 511 to Gov. Kelly Ayotte’s desk, who has signaled her support for the measure and is expected to sign it. If she does, the new state law would override and ban so-called “sanctuary” and “welcoming” policies like Peterborough’s.

Ayotte campaigned on banning sanctuary cities and tightening immigration restrictions during the race for governor last year. She has also encouraged municipal police departments to sign up for partnerships to receive training from and work with federal enforcers.

During a Community Conversation about immigration in April at the Monadnock Center for History and Culture in Peterborough, Democratic state Rep. Peter Leishman encouraged attendees to attend a hearing on the bill, and several residents went to Concord to urge senators to kill the legislation. They said they wanted to honor the ordinance that Peterborough voters approved in 2017 that prohibits local police from assisting in U.S. Immigration Customs and Enforcement investigations, like the February raid of Mi Jalisco, where four people were located by ICE.

While Police Chief Scott Guinard was informed of the raid at Mi Jalisco, Peterborough officers did not participate. In the aftermath of the raid, residents raised questions to the Peterborough Select Board, and the board’s agenda for Tuesday includes a request for attorney opinions on Hosue Bill 511 and Senate Bill 62, which also passed Thursday. It aims to remove municipalities’ authority to stop or impede training partnerships..

Sen. Bill Gannon, a Sandown Republican who listened to comments at the public hearing, said on the Senate floor ahead of Thursday’s vote that one town’s decisions can affect the entire state.

“They were like, ‘We want to protect. We don’t want to comply. We don’t want to work with people from the feds.’ … They said, ‘Why can’t you just let Peterborough alone? Let us do what we want,’” Gannon said. “The problem is, there’s neighboring towns and the whole state is open to these people, so if they have unvetted people … If you have people like that in your community, there’s no border stopping them from leaving Peterborough. The whole state then is open and at risk.”

The bill passed 15-8 along party lines. Democrats, including Keene Sen. Donovan Fenton, who also represents Peterborough, opposed it. Sen. Kevin Avard, a Republican who represents the Monadnock region towns of Greenville, Mason, New Ipswich and Rindge, was absent and did not vote.

Republicans like Gannon have pursued a ban on sanctuary cities and similar legislation for several years and, buoyed by an increased majority in the State House and a national crackdown on illegal immigration, they’ve now gotten that legislation to the governor’s desk. 

Charlotte Matherly is the statehouse reporter for the Monadnock Ledger-Transcript and Concord Monitor in partnership with Report for America. Follow her on X at @charmatherly, subscribe to her Capital Beat newsletter and send her an email at cmatherly@cmonitor.com.