Pay the piper, call the tune
We’re learning that several New Hampshire police departments have accepted big dollars to become subcontractors for the Department of Homeland Security. That agency has no roots in the community, its agents are afraid to show their faces and they can’t tell or don’t care about the difference between dangerous criminals and day workers or kindergarteners.
The contracts require local police to receive ICE training. We’ve seen what that means and made it clear it isn’t welcome in our communities. Contracts also require that local departments relinquish control over what information about its actions is released to the public. Turning public servants into secret-keepers is never a good sign.
The temptation is understandable: money is terribly tight. Our state legislature is controlled by billionaire-funded Free Staters who have spent a decade enriching themselves by defunding state and local governments. People are losing essential services, while property taxes continue to rise.
As the saying goes, they who pay the piper call the tune, so the public must take back the purse strings. For the long term, this means supporting reforms that lower property taxes and distribute financial responsibility (and therefore political power) more fairly. Right now, we can remind our local leaders we want our police to serve us, not ICE. Most urgently, in November we must vote out Free Staters disguised as Republicans — every last one.