The New Hampshire Senate killed a measure to provide public notice ahead of immigration checkpoints in a 14-10 vote along party lines Thursday.

House Bill 579 would have required local law enforcement to inform the public when they learned that a federal agency planned to conduct an immigration checkpoint in the state. The bill’s prime sponsor, Rep. Kevin Craig, a Lancaster Republican, told the Senate Judiciary Committee checkpoints cause problems for people who are detained and harassed for hours. He pointed to a man who almost lost his job after being interrogated for as long as two hours in spite of traveling with his U.S. passport in hand. The bill would have allowed him to take an alternative route.

While the bill gained bipartisan sponsorship and support in the House, passing the chamber, 254-85, in January, it was defeated by Senate Republicans Thursday, who argued it would hinder the federal government’s ability to protect the state from criminal activity.

“If the federal government’s trying to protect us, we shouldn’t be interfering with them,” said Sen. Bill Gannon, a Sandown Republican, during the Senate session Thursday. Providing notice about the checkpoints, he argued, would allow people to enter the country with drugs, guns, and without the proper documentation. Sen. Bob Giuda, a Warren Republican, agreed that it would be worth surrendering some individual liberty in exchange for federal protection.

Democrats pushed for notice, saying the checkpoints on Interstate 89 have prevented people and ambulances from getting to Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center. Sen. Becky Whitley, a Hopkinton Democrat, said the checkpoints are an intrusion on people’s civil liberties. 

The checkpoints are allowed within 100 miles of any U.S. border and are only meant to prevent unlawful entry into the country, Whitley said. “Unfortunately, the so-called immigration checkpoints we’ve seen in New Hampshire have been used for fishing expeditions for other unlawful purposes,” she said, referring to people who are stopped and searched without probable cause.

Democrats claimed the bill would work like the notice currently provided for sobriety checkpoints, but Gannon argued that the checkpoints are different. “I want to tell my kids, ‘Don’t go on the road tonight, there’s going to be cops,’ so people are less apt to drive. We’re giving them notice so they don’t drink and drive. It’s a deterrent. I can differentiate that totally from what Border Patrol is trying to do. The border patrol is trying to catch criminals,” he said. Senate Republicans argued that the state shouldn’t get involved with immigration. 

“It is not the job of the state to manage immigration within our borders. That is the jurisdiction of the feds,” said Sen. Harold French, a Franklin Republican.

Immigration rights advocates made that same argument, unsuccessfully, when fighting a Republican-backed bill instructing local police to cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.