Troy, N.H., police officers have made 13 immigration arrests this year, mostly people stopped for alleged driving violations in the small Cheshire County town, according to Police Chief David Ellis Jr.

He said Wednesday that two of the arrests were made outside the courthouse in Keene, N.H.

Immigration enforcement traditionally has been a federal task, but an executive order President Donald Trump signed Jan. 20 requires that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement authorize state and local police to also participate.

The Troy Police Department is among a dozen law enforcement agencies in New Hampshire and 1,200 across the nation that have entered into 287(g) agreements with ICE.

The agreements are named for a section of immigration law that gives local and state police agencies the authority to perform immigration enforcement.

Critics of the 287(g) agreements say they lead to arrests without a lawful basis, erode trust in local law enforcement and waste money and time that would be better spent in the community rather than on federal civil immigration work.

Proponents say the pacts enhance public safety, expand the reach of immigration enforcement and can lead to the arrest of people who are not U.S. citizens and face criminal charges.

“I feel we’re doing something good,” Chief Ellis said in an interview Wednesday in his office.

Ellis said he’s happy to have immigrants who are here legally in the community but that wherever a person is from, “If you do something wrong, you have to answer for it.”

‘It could be anything’

Fernanda Marra Romeiro, an attorney with Celedon Law in Marlborough, Mass., represented one of the 13 people Troy police arrested.

Higo Davico Napoleao, 23, a construction worker from Brazil, was a passenger in a car that was being driven through Troy on Oct. 6 when police pulled it over on a speeding allegation, she said.

Napoleao was on his way home to Lowell, Mass., when police arrested him, Romeiro said. He then spent a month in federal custody until he was released following a bond hearing.

Romeiro said Napoleao, who has a valid work authorization card, has been in a years-long process of trying to become a permanent resident. In previous proceedings, the government had dropped a removal case against him because he had been classified as a special immigrant juvenile, she said.

That classification provides a potential pathway to permanent residency for some people under 21 who have been abused, neglected or abandoned by their parents. Romeiro said Napoleao was also given deferred action status, which delays deportation.

She said her advice to people concerned about their immigration status is not to come to New Hampshire.

“People are being stopped for allegedly speeding, but it could be anything,” Romeiro said. “You could be involved in a motor vehicle accident and all of a sudden, there are police officers involved.

“So there are many different scenarios when you could be involved with law enforcement while crossing New Hampshire that could lead to immigration detention.”

ACLU objections

Gilles Bissonnette, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of New Hampshire, said it is concerning when any police department enters into a 287(g) agreement.

He said that when local departments enforce immigration law, immigrants become less likely to communicate with police or seek help from them when they are a victim of crime.

Bissonnette said that once ICE detains someone, they can be held in custody for weeks or months until they can get a bond hearing.

“People are being picked up and detained regardless of whether they are a danger, regardless of whether they are a flight risk, regardless of whether they have committed a crime,” he said. “That person is being separated from their children, their partner, their parents. We should all imagine what it would be like if we were placed in that situation.

“That is what this regime is designed to do unfortunately — cause for these community members a sense of dread and terror.”

A key issue in a number of immigration cases is simply making sure the defendant has a day in court and a chance to be released on bond rather than being confined indefinitely, Bissonette said.

Courthouse sidewalk arrests

Cheshire County Sheriff Eli Rivera, whose agency provides security for the courthouse, said he was called by a constituent who was upset that one of his employees got picked up by Troy police outside the Keene building.

Rivera said this arrest, on Nov. 13, was the second time Troy police had taken someone into custody on the sidewalk outside the courthouse, with the other time coming a week earlier.

Rivera said such police activity may cause people to fear going to their court hearings.

“If anyone has something that brings them to court and they are not documented, now the fear will be, ‘Is ICE going to be outside the courthouse waiting for me, or is a local police agency working with ICE going to be waiting for me?’

“And that fear is going to travel real quick, like a wild brush fire.”

Rivera said he’s happy to work with federal law enforcement partners concerning people accused of violent crimes.

“I’d be the first person to bring them to ICE, because that’s the kind of behavior we’re trying to stop,” Rivera said.

On the other hand, he questions helping the federal agency apprehend someone for potential deportation when “they are just making a living here, trying to provide for the family and get a speeding ticket or something minor.”

Immigrant advocate

Former Democratic state Rep. Joe Schapiro of Keene is among a group of advocates for immigrants who have been meeting with law enforcement officials to discuss their 287(g) agreements.

He met with Ellis on Nov. 24.

“I think that there has been a national campaign to demonize and terrorize immigrants,” Schapiro said this week.

“I think there has been an alarming reduction in due process rights and constantly changing rules and regulation that have really been hurtful to immigrants and in turn has been hurtful to businesses that employ immigrants.”

Arrests explained

Ellis said he and two of his officers have been trained and certified to do immigration enforcement under his department’s agreement with ICE.

He said he has made 12 of the 13 arrests, mostly people just passing through town.

N.H. Route 12 goes through Troy. It is a primary route for people traveling between Boston and Keene and has a speed limit of 55 mph in some places, which drops to 30 mph in Troy.

“We stop a lot of cars,” Ellis said.

He said he or his officers inquire about immigration status during a traffic stop if they have a “reasonable suspicion” to do so. Not having a driver’s license could lead to such a suspicion, he said.

If necessary, they will check a person’s immigration status through a database.

If that search fails to find the person or determines that the person is in the country without proper immigration authorization, Ellis calls his ICE contact in Manchester to see if he should deliver them to federal custody in that city.

He has also brought people to the Strafford County jail in Dover, N.H., which has an agreement to hold ICE detainees. Ellis said another officer provides law enforcement coverage in Troy while he is on the road to Manchester or Dover.

Ellis said he “felt bad” during the first few arrests and sometimes still does, but feels people should go through proper immigration processes.

“They’re not bad guys,” he said, referring to the people he arrested.

Most did not appear to be facing issues beyond their immigration status, he noted, but he added that at least one had underlying charges of robbery and assault. He said about half of the 13 people arrested did not have a driver’s license.

Troy agreement

Ellis signed the 287(g) agreement with ICE in March. Under it, his police department is responsible for personnel expenses associated with the agreement, including overtime.

The chief said recent changes to the program should lead to ICE picking up overtime costs.

A Nov. 3 budget report posted on the town’s website showed that the police department, which has three full-time employees, had exceeded its $25,000 yearly overtime budget by about $2,200 or nearly 9%, with two months left in the year.

But when all of the police department’s operational expenses are considered, it was nearly 23% under its yearly budget of $576,608.

Selectboard watching

Richard H. Thackston III, a Troy selectman, said the Troy Police Department’s decision to participate in the agreement with ICE is not something that came before the selectboard.

“The real question is, is it draining resources from the day-to-day operations of Troy, and the answer is at this time, it does not appear to be,” he said.

Thackston said constituents haven’t called him with concerns about the local immigration enforcement.

He said he and other selectboard members are monitoring the issue.

“We’re conscious of it and we’re watching it,” Thackston said. “It’s certainly not a hard no, and it’s not a ‘Yee-haw, this is the greatest thing since sliced bread,’ ‘’ Thackston said.

Most detainees ever

According to the nonprofit Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, there were a record 65,135 people in ICE detention as of Nov. 16, 73.6% of whom had no criminal convictions.

According to ICE statistics as of Nov. 10, it had 198 detainees in the Berlin Federal Correctional Institute and 140 at the Strafford County Department of Corrections in Dover.

The other 11 law enforcement agencies in New Hampshire with 287(g) agreements include State Police and sheriff’s offices in Grafton, Hillsborough, Rockingham and Belknap counties.

Also included are police departments in Candia, N.H., Carroll, N.H., Colebrook, N.H., Gorham, N.H., Ossipee N.H., and Pittsburg, N.H .

These articles are being shared by partners in The Granite State News Collaborative. For more information visit collaborativenh.org.