In Pittsburg, New Hampshire’s northernmost and largest town by land area, the police department consists of one chief and one full-time officer, unable to conduct 24/7 coverage of its 282 square miles.
That’s where officers from surrounding areas, like Berlin and Colebrook, come in to help patrol.
State, county and local law enforcement partner up via the Northern Border Alliance, a $1.4 million state program aimed at funding an increased and visible police presence within 25 miles of New Hampshire’s border with Canada.
“Up here is very rural,” said Paul Rella, the Colebrook police chief. “Colebrook PD is full-time, but we are not directly on the border … So having the extra law enforcement presence from Berlin and the participating towns, I believe, has had a big impact on crossings in our state.”
Police involved in New Hampshire’s Northern Border Alliance assisted U.S. Customs and Border Patrol seven times from January to June, according to a progress report from Department of Safety Commissioner Robert Quinn.
The program, championed by former Gov. Chris Sununu in 2023, funds overtime, equipment and training costs for New Hampshire State Police in the area. It also gave grants to eight local and county police departments this past fiscal year.
Rella said it’s hard to quantify the program’s effect since police can only track the people they encounter and not the “getaways,” but he believes a strong show of force has deterred illegal border crossings and activity. For example, when people cross into New Hampshire from Canada in Pittsburg, he said, most end up filtering down into Vermont.
“It’s mostly just wilderness, and an unsecured border within that wilderness,” Rella said. “It’s hundreds of square acres of just forest, and we don’t know how many people are actually coming through unless they hit the road and we happen to encounter them.”
Law enforcement working with the Northern Border Alliance arrested 10 people during the first half of the year on a variety of charges, including one for drug possession and several for domestic violence and illegal operation of vehicles. A spokesperson for the Department of Safety said they don’t have information on the arrestees’ immigration status.
One federal report was filed about suspicious activity at New Hampshire’s border during those six months.
The Northern Border Alliance, meant to reduce crime overall, was pursued by lawmakers as a method of cracking down on illegal immigration and drug trafficking.
Its funding covered 3,200 patrol hours over the past six months and secured new equipment for State Police in the North Country: a Chevrolet Silverado, a cargo trailer, two Ski-Doo snowmobiles, a utility terrain vehicle, helmets and winter gear.
Immigration-related arrests and apprehensions have been low along New Hampshire’s heavily wooded, 58-mile border with Québec, where there is only one official checkpoint.
Critics of the Northern Border Alliance say it’s unnecessary and spends money to combat a crisis that doesn’t exist.
“There was nothing that needed to be fixed or prevented to begin with,” Amanda Azad, policy director at the American Civil Liberties Union of New Hampshire, said in a January interview.
Meanwhile, Republican lawmakers like Gov. Kelly Ayotte say the low numbers mean the program is effective as a criminal deterrent.
“Criminals avoid crossing into New Hampshire because of the strong partnership we have created between federal, state, and local law enforcement along our northern border,” Ayotte said in a statement. Her office declined an interview request for this story.
Officials say the program has also helped improve response times and provide more backup. Lawmakers funded the Northern Border Alliance at $600,000 for the next two years, on top of its remaining $325,500 balance.
Ayotte also championed similar funding programs this year, called Operation Granite Shield and the new Operation Northern Shield, which allocate a combined $4.5 million to combat drug trafficking along the state’s borders with Canada and Massachusetts. Those, she said, are “keeping dangerous criminals out of our state and fighting back against the flow of deadly poison like fentanyl into our communities.”
On the federal level, immigration arrests have risen dramatically in the past six months. In New Hampshire, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have arrested 110 people — an average of 0.8 people daily — since the start of the Trump administration, according to an analysis by The New York Times. That’s a 322% increase from last year and on par with many other states where ICE arrests have tripled or more.
Charlotte Matherly is the statehouse reporter for the Concord Monitor and Monadnock Ledger-Transcript in partnership with Report for America. Follow her on X at @charmatherly.
