Illegal immigration has ignited conservative primary audiences in New Hampshire this year, prompting more questions than Iraq in many town hall meetings. Voters have grilled Sen. John McCain about his support for a compromise immigration bill and Rudy Giuliani about policies in New York City when he was mayor.

The heat on this issue could be surprising in New Hampshire, a state of 1.3 million that has a small immigrant population and a tiny illegal one. According to census estimates, the state gained 13,700 immigrants from 2000 to 2006; one expert projects that the state may have a total illegal immigrant population of 6,000 to 7,000.

No one is identified with the illegal immigration issue more than Rep. Tom Tancredo, a Colorado Republican who has championed building a fence on the Mexican border. The fence idea has been embraced on the stump across the Republican field, including top candidates such as Giuliani and former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney.

"People have a very deep, deep concern about this, and it's not just politicos like me. It is little gray-haired ladies and moms and dads. This has saturated the population," said Shelly Uscinski, Tancredo's New Hampshire campaign manager. "When you see all the presidential candidates have moved to the Tancredo position, you know that it's an important issue."

Romney and Giuliani, ranked first and second in many polls, have sparred on immigration for weeks. Both have sharply criticized the immigration reform bill backed by McCain that would have provided a path to legalization for the 12 million illegal immigrants believed to be living in the United States. Both inveigh against amnesty on the stump and have moved on to finer distinctions.

In New Hampshire and Iowa, Romney's campaign launched a radio advertisement this week targeting "sanctuary cities," which don't require city employees to report illegal immigrants to federal authorities. The ad mentions New York City, a dig at Giuliani, whose campaign promptly retorted that Massachusetts had three sanctuary cities on Romney's watch.

But the issue isn't just coming up in ads and in press reports. Republican candidates can't hold a question-and-answer session in New Hampshire without getting at least one on illegal immigration. "Certainly Iraq and immigration are the two that we get every time," said Romney spokesman Craig Stevens.

Why here?

From what he can tell, the immigration issue "has burst onto the scene" over the past couple of years, said New Hampshire Republican Party Chairman Fergus Cullen. The son of immigrants from Ireland himself, Cullen said he thinks post-Sept. 11 security concerns might be driving the issue to the fore. It doesn't seem to be driven by anything people have seen in the state, he said.

"There just seems to be a disconnect between the rhetoric and what actually takes place on the ground in New Hampshire," Cullen said. "I would say that Lou Dobbs and talk radio have certainly been fanning the flames on this issue."

Asked if she'd ever seen an illegal immigrant in New Hampshire, Uscinski said she doesn't ask people their citizenship status and that reporters should do more to find them. "I travel around with my candidate," she said. "I don't really imagine that too many illegal aliens or aliens would be attending Tancredo events.

Uscinski, who worked for Pat Buchanan's campaigns in 1996 and 2000, said she thinks her former candidate was prescient. "He was the lone voice in the wilderness talking about illegal immigration," she said. "Of course, back then, he was decried as a xenophobe and a racist among other epithets. And now what he was saying has come to fruition, and now people have realized that."

Among the voters worried about immigration James Power, 79, a retired machinist from Laconia. He went to see McCain this spring and panned the Arizona senator's support of the compromise immigration reform bill.

Power said illegal immigrants should go through the same processes as previous immigrants. He said he'd never seen illegal immigrants in New Hampshire and couldn't exactly explain why this issue had caught him this year.

"I haven't actually seen an immigrant, myself, but I just listen to the news," he said.

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