More than two dozen police agencies in New Hampshire, large and small, have agreements with ICE to help enforce immigration law, but government data suggest the little police department in Troy, N.H., is among the most helpful.

Statewide, officers made 51 arrests under these agreements from 2025 through March 10, according to information provided by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in response to a public records request from Deportation Data Project, a research initiative based at UC Berkeley and UCLA.

Of those arrests, 15, or about 30%, were made in Cheshire County, where the Troy Police Department is the only agency with one of these pacts, known as 287(g) agreements, according to this data.

These figures agree with information provided by Troy Police Chief David Ellis.

He said in early December that his department had made a dozen immigration arrests. He provided arrest reports this week showing that this arrest total has now grown to nearly 30.

Ellis signed his agreement with ICE in March 2025, one of the first police leaders in the state to do so.

The pacts are controversial. Advocates say they enhance public safety and are permitted under longstanding federal law.

Critics say they lead to arrests without a lawful basis, erode trust in local law enforcement, waste money and time and are performed through racial profiling.

Ellis said most of the immigration arrests made by him and his officers came after they pulled over vehicles for alleged traffic violations, including speeding, on busy Route 12 in Troy, where the legal limit drops from 50 mph to 30 mph.

This 2,000-population town appears to be an easy place to spot vehicle infractions.

Rowan Reddy, a traffic analysis engineer for the N.H. Department of Transportation, says an average of about 10,000 cars come through Troy daily on Route 12, which connects central Massachusetts with New Hampshire.

The average speed for cars in Troy near the town’s fire department is 42 mph, he said, citing information from a digital traffic tracking service.

Richard H. Thackston III, a member of the Troy selectboard, had a message for immigrants without proper documentation.

“You can’t fix stupid, but if I were driving an unregistered vehicle without a driver’s license and I was in the country illegally and I knew that Troy was a hot spot, I would probably not drive through that town,” he said in an interview this week.

“You could watch the speedometer closely, you could get current plates on your vehicle, any of that stuff.”

Some local people aren’t happy with local police helping with immigration arrests, which are traditionally the responsibility of the federal government.

A group of self-described retired professionals and young advocates holds protests on this topic every Friday afternoon near the Troy Commons. An attempt to hold an advisory vote on the 287(g) agreement was tabled, or removed from consideration, during the town meeting in March.

The arrests in Troy have been made without incident, except one case on June 23 in which police allege two people ran from a traffic stop. One was quickly captured, but another led officers on a chase through the woods, Ellis said.

Sgt. Stephen Nickerson of the Marlborough Police Department, who helped in the police response, said in a police report that a police dog from Peterborough named Queso helped locate the man.

“The subject gave up within a minute or so of the K9 following him into the woods,” Nickerson said in the report.

He said that as another officer told the man to put his hands on his head, “I drew my department-issued firearm and pointed it toward the subject in order to provide lethal cover while the subject was taken into custody.”

Nickerson added that after the man was in custody, “We learned of a potential leg injury with visible blood dripping down his leg.”

An ambulance was called.

“Once the subject was safely out of the woods and in the care of Cheshire County EMS and Chief Ellis, I cleared the scene.”

Ultimately, the three people in the car that was pulled over were turned over to ICE, Ellis said.

He said that with a couple of exceptions, the Troy immigration arrests have involved people with problems like an expired visa or failure to show up for a hearing.

After pulling over a car for an alleged traffic violation, he said he asks for identification for the driver and sometimes the passenger. Any immigration arrest would be made after he checks with an ICE supervisor. He said he would often then transport the person to the ICE office in Manchester.

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