As the Senate voted on the hot-button issue of sanctuary cities for illegal immigrants Tuesday, New Hampshire Republicans were calling out Governor Maggie Hassan, a Democrat running to unseat incumbent Senator Kelly Ayotte, for her past efforts to safeguard sanctuary-city policies in the Granite State.
The New Hampshire GOP hopes to use the issue to draw yet another marked contrast between Hassan and Ayotte, who today voted in favor of legislation to withhold federal funding from sanctuary cities.
The state party is pointing to 2008, when Hassan, then a state senator, voted to kill a bill that, in its pretext, simply called for “enforce[ing] immigration laws to the extent authorized by federal law” statewide.
Hassan’s record on the issue is an affront to “common sense” and “public safety,” said New Hampshire Republican party chairman Jennifer Horn.
“When illegal immigrants commit violent crimes in our country they need to be arrested and immediately deported,” Horn said.
The Senate is not advancing that view. The Stop Sanctuary Policies and Protect Americans Act, endorsed by multiple police associations, including the National Association of Police Organizations, failed today on a 54-45 vote. Sponsored by Senator David Vitter (R-La.) and supported by Ayotte, the bill represented the most prominent effort to crack down on sanctuary-city policies after Kate Steinle’s brutal murder in San Francisco this summer. Steinle, 32, was shot and killed by Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez, an illegal immigrant who had previously been deported five times and convicted of seven felonies.
Ayotte has gained a reputation for her keen acumen on national-security policy, so the issue of sanctuary cities is in her wheelhouse. Immediately following Steinle’s murder, Ayotte wrote a letter to Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson asking that he launch a “full investigation” into the circumstances surrounding Lopez-Sanchez’s presence in the United States.
According to New Hampshire political strategist Ryan Williams, the issue takes on a particular resonance because of the brutal heroin epidemic that continues to seize the state and surrounding areas. Many state Republicans have said the epidemic is fueled by illegal immigrants finding criminal protection in sanctuary cities such as Lawrence, Mass., just fifteen minutes from the New Hampshire border.
“This issue matters here,” Williams says. “Hassan likes to say she puts New Hampshire above party lines, but her record isn’t speaking to that.”