Grace Kindeke is the New Hampshire Program Coordinator at the American Friends Service Committee. She was born in the Democratic Republic of Congo and lives in Manchester with her family. Eva Castillo is the Director of the New Hampshire Alliance for Immigrants and Refugees and a longtime advocate for immigrant rights. Originally from Venezuela, she lives in Manchester with her family.

The Trump Administration has been targeting immigrant communities and significantly increasing the operations of the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency, including contributing to mass deportations. This is happening right here in New Hampshire.

Now, the Administration is attempting to deputize state and local law enforcement to conduct federal immigration enforcement in New Hampshire in order to expand arrests, detentions and deportations.

Even though this program, the 287(g) program, has led to well-documented abuses, the administration has revived it to enable local and state law enforcement to challenge people on the street about their immigration status — and possibly arrest them for deportation. Most recently, New Hampshire State Police joined the program.

We — along with civil rights and immigration leaders with the N.H. Immigrants’ Rights Network and ACLU of New Hampshire — have authored an open letter to all law enforcement heads in the state warning of the risks of engaging in the 287(g) program and urging them not to sign onto any such agreement.

The 287(g) program, named after a section of the 1996 Immigration and Nationality Act, is relatively simple in language yet terribly life-altering in practice: It allows local law enforcement agencies to carry out certain duties normally reserved for federal immigration agents, such as investigating a person’s immigration status and holding people for transfer to ICE detention. The result is that even the most minor interactions with police can lead to detention, deportation, job loss and separation from loved ones, disproportionately impacting Black and Brown immigrants.

The 287(g) program’s Task Force Model, recently revived by the Trump administration, was dropped in 2012 after abuses, including incidents of racial profiling that cost tens of millions in lawsuits. This discontinuation followed a 2011 Department of Justice investigation that found widespread racial profiling and other discrimination against Latinos in Arizona.

In 2024, the New Hampshire legislature also passed and former Gov. Sununu signed a bill banning racial profiling in law enforcement in the state.

A report published by the ACLU in April 2022 further found that dozens of sheriff partners in the 287(g) program had records of racism and violence. The ACLU’s analysis revealed extensive civil rights violations and other abuses, particularly racial profiling. The report highlights that xenophobia is at the very heart of the 287(g) program, which expanded five-fold under the first Trump administration and now the administration seeks to expand exponentially.

One 2018 case documented in the report is that of Sara Medrano, who was driving her grandkids to go shopping in Maryland, when she was pulled over and almost separated from her family for good. The reason given for the traffic stop? A burnt-out taillight. She was held for nearly an hour due to an “immigration problem” until a deputy finally returned to her car with a written warning for her taillight and let her go — a clear pretextual traffic stop violating Sara’s rights and likely driven by racial profiling.

He had no basis to arrest her, and immigration authorities were not available to take custody of her. In the end, it turned out her tail light was working just fine. Unlike many others, Sara remained safely with her family.

Despite the 287(g) program’s history of abuse and the recent prohibition of racial profiling in New Hampshire law enforcement, a growing number of New Hampshire law enforcement agencies — the Belknap County Sheriff’s Office, the Grafton County Sheriff’s Office, and the Colebrook, Gorham, Ossipee, Pittsburg, and Troy Police Departments — have already accepted the Trump administration’s mass deportation plans and have been approved to participate in the 287(g) program’s Task Force Model. Most recently, New Hampshire State Police also joined the model.

At the same time, at least three major police departments and others throughout the state have instead chosen to heed their community’s requests and declined to participate in a program that detracts from their ability to focus on and respond to local needs. To ensure public safety, all members of the public, regardless of status, must be able to rely on and trust in local emergency systems.

Joining this program is an unnecessary violation of trust, ignores community needs and comes at local taxpayer expense with no measurable benefits. New Hampshire communities deserve better.