After Gov. Kelly Ayotte spent weeks saying the federal government would not answer her questions about plans for a proposed immigration detention facility in Merrimack, a top Immigration and Customs Enforcement official told a Senate committee that it had.
New Hampshire Sen. Maggie Hassan questioned Todd Lyons, the acting director of ICE, about whether the Department of Homeland Security would heed the concerns of town officials and cancel the project. Lyons declined.
“No, ma’am. Actually, DHS has worked with Governor Ayotte, has spoken to the governor about economic impact,” Lyons testified at a congressional hearing on Thursday. He added that the federal agency has provided an economic impact summary and spoke with Ayotte “within the past weeks.”
Ayotte denied that.
“This is simply not true,” Ayotte said in a statement shortly after the hearing. “Director Lyons’ comments today are another example of the troubling pattern of issues with this process. Officials from the Department of Homeland Security continue to provide zero details of their plans for Merrimack, never mind providing any reports or surveys.”
For weeks, Ayotte said the White House and Department of Homeland Security had not answered her questions about the plans after they were first reported by The Washington Post in December. She said she’d insisted that the residents of Merrimack be brought into discussions of any planned facility.
Last week, those plans were confirmed by records obtained by the ACLU of New Hampshire. They showed that the state’s Department of Natural and Cultural Resources had received an inquiry from the federal government about potential impacts to historic properties, as is required under federal law.
That information never made it to the governor’s office, Ayotte said, leading to the department head’s resignation.
Devon Chaffee, the ACLU of New Hampshire’s executive director, said her organization has filed a public records request for the economic impact statement that Lyons said was sent to Ayotte’s office.
“If an economic impact statement or anything else has been given to her office, Granite Staters deserve to know,” Chaffee said in a statement.
New Hampshire House Democratic Leader Alexis Simpson called on Ayotte to clarify the timeline and content of her communication with federal authorities.
“Granite Staters were given a very different account of these discussions just last week,” Simpson said a press release. “When statements from state leaders conflict with sworn testimony, the public deserves answers.”
The plans to purchase and occupy a 43-acre warehouse at 50 Robert Milligan Parkway in Merrimack has drawn pushback both from town officials and protesters, but they are not yet certain. No sale or transfer has gone through, according to the town’s property assessment database.
Hassan elevated the concerns of town officials, which span the way ICE operates its deportation efforts and centers as well as the loss of property tax revenue from the site, which is valued at $23.6 million.
“We have a long tradition of local control and participation in New Hampshire, and we expect that you will be sitting not just with the governor but with local officials so that they can understand what the impact will be on their community,” Hassan said.