O P I N I O N
THE SOAPBOX
Stand up. Speak up. It’s your turn.
New Hampshire is a state built by immigrants. Our farms, our mills, our Main Streets, and even our very identity as a place of hard work and opportunity were formed by newcomers who arrived with little more than determination and hope. Today, nearly 7% of New Hampshire residents are foreign-born, and more than 10,000 New Hampshire businesses are immigrant-owned. Immigrants are not strangers to this state — they are us.
That is why the reported federal plan to use a warehouse in Merrimack as a detention site for up to 1,500 ICE detainees should alarm every resident, regardless of party or politics. Turning Merrimack — and by extension New Hampshire — into a processing hub for mass-detention under an administration that has openly discussed bypassing legal norms is a step toward a future that violates our values, our economy, and potentially our Constitution.
This proposal is not simply about square footage and bathrooms. It is about whether New Hampshire wants to participate in a system that treats human beings as cargo — to be warehoused and moved around without due process.
Mass Detention Is Not Lawful Immigration Policy
For months, prior to his re-election, President Donald Trump’s intention was made clear through reporting that if returned to office he would invoke emergency powers and expand detention without traditional legal safeguards. Legal scholars, civil liberties groups, and even conservative former officials have warned that such a plan risks violating the 5th Amendment right to due process, federal refugee law, and existing court rulings limiting prolonged detention.
Immigration enforcement is lawful. Mass imprisonment without individualized hearings is not.
New Hampshire must make clear that we do not hand over our municipalities to federal experiments in constitutional shortcuts.
Most Detainees Are Not Criminals
Even ICE’s own data — quietly acknowledged in federal reports — shows:
- 83% of detainees held in Berlin, NH, are classified as “non-criminal.”
- 68% in Strafford County are non-criminal.
These are asylum seekers, parents, workers — and in many cases, people who followed legal instructions and presented themselves to officials, only to be locked in cells.
A Merrimack warehouse filled with hundreds of non-violent immigrants is not about “public safety.” It is about political theater at the expense of human beings.
New Hampshire Needs Workers — Not Walls
There is a growing labor shortage across New Hampshire. Hospitality, health-care, childcare, construction, and manufacturing all report thousands of unfilled jobs. Meanwhile, rural and aging communities face population decline that threatens schools, small businesses, and tax bases.
Immigrants are not a burden — they are a lifeline.
A detention hub tells the exact opposite story: that people we desperately need are instead a problem to be contained.
Local Control Means Local Consent — Not Surprise Announcements
Granite Staters value local decision-making. Yet Merrimack residents discovered this proposal through leaked documents — not through transparent collaboration.
State leaders have said only that it is “too early” to know more. That is not enough.
Local government should not be relegated to rubber-stamping federal plans already underway. If ICE intends to build a detention center here, New Hampshire deserves:
- Full public hearings
- Independent legal review
- Written guarantees of constitutional compliance
- Municipal veto power
- Transparent economic analysis
Anything less is a betrayal of the very principle that defines us: Live Free or Die.
New Hampshire Must Lead — Not Become a Silent Partner
Some will argue that opposing detention means ignoring border issues. That is false. New Hampshire can support:
- Secure borders and humane policy
- Law enforcement and legal rights
- Order and dignity
We can hold two truths at once.
What we cannot do is allow ourselves to be used as a warehouse for a federal agenda that treats people as disposable.
A Call to Action
Residents must contact:
- Merrimack Town Council
- State legislative leadership
- NH Congressional Delegation
- The Governor
…and demand immediate hearings before any contract is signed.
Let it be written now — and remembered later — that New Hampshire did not quietly allow mass-detention infrastructure to be built on our soil without a fight.
Because once the gates are built and the beds are installed, dismantling them becomes nearly impossible. And history has shown — detention systems always grow, never shrink.
We are a state of immigrants — from French-Canadian millworkers to West African small-business owners, from Irish laborers to Guatemalan farmhands. We honor that legacy not with warehouses of cells, but with policies rooted in humanity and law.
New Hampshire is many things.
A holding pen for human beings must never be one of them.
Representative David Preece serves the residents of Hillsborough County, District 17, in Manchester.
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