Vote came after board confronted with MPD’s refusal to share information with ICE

MANCHESTER, NH  August 10, 2026–Following a presentation made by former at-Large school board member, at-Large alderman and mayoral candidate Rich Girard, at the August 4 meeting of the Manchester Board of Mayor and Aldermen (BMA), the aldermen voted 11 to 2 with one abstention to support the Manchester Police Department’s (MPD) policy of not notifying federal immigration officials after arresting an illegal alien is arrested for the commission of a crime.

Girard shared details of an article written by the Keene Sentinel about how the Troy Police Department (TPD), had arrested 30 illegal aliens since March, 2025, as a result of routine traffic enforcement efforts on Route 12, under a “287(g)” agreement with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).  According to federal records, TPD is one of 26 law enforcement agencies in New Hampshire that has an agreement with ICE.  Others include the NH State Police (NHSP) and the sheriffs of Hillsborough and Rockingham counties.  The Auburn Police Department, which employs Alderman Dan Goonan (D-Ward 2) and formerly employed Alderman Bill Barry (D-Ward 10), also participates.

Troy, NH has about 2,000 residents.

There are three different 287(g) agreements available to state and local law enforcement agencies.  The most popular is the Task Force Model (TFM).  It allows officers to exercise limited immigration authority during routine duties, such as traffic stops, and applies to those arrested for committing crimes.  Participating officers must take a 40-hour online course that provides training on:

  • scope of authority
  • immigration law
  • civil rights law
  • cross-cultural issues
  • liability issues,
  • complaint procedures, and
  • obligations under federal law.

The TPD, the NHSP and 1,465 other departments across the country, including all participating NH agencies, use this agreement.

The second most used agreement is the Warrant Service Officer Model (WSO).  It requires just 8 hours of training on legal authorities and enforcement protocols, which is usually provided by a local ICE field office.  It authorizes officers to serve and execute ICE administrative warrants on individuals already in local custody.  Five hundred thirty three local jurisdictions have these agreements with ICE.

Finally, there is the Jail Enforcement Model (JEM), which enables officers to identify removable illegal aliens who are already in local custody on criminal charges.  Designated officers must attend a four-week Immigration Authority Delegation Program in person at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Charleston, SC and obtain a satisfactory score on a series of exams.  Refresher courses are generally required every other year.  One hundred seventy nine communities have entered into these agreements.

While the agreements enable local jurisdictions to formally work with ICE to remove illegal aliens, none requires the local jurisdiction to “run deportation operations” or imposes any mandates outside of the training.  All make additional federal funds available to partner agencies.

During his presentation, Girard revealed the contents of emails received from Manchester Police Chief Peter Marr stating that, of the MPD’s 3,525 arrests between January 1, 2025 and Sept. 30, 2025, only 4 arrestees were turned over to ICE.

From: Marr, Peter
Sent: Friday, October 10, 2025 1:13 PM
To: rich girardatlarge.com <rich@girardatlarge.com>
Subject: RE: 91-A Right to Know Request

In order to double check our info from your last email we were able to see that it is actually only 4 people turned over to ICE. One of them had been entered multiple times causing it to look like 6.

One person was  arrested on a theft warrant and released to ICE on detainer

One person was stopped on MV stop and gave a fake ID. Officer suspected it was an imposter and contacted ICE. Person was identified as previously deported and ICE came to get him

One person was arrested for resisting and criminal history check showed previously deported 3 times. Contacted ICE and they came and got him

One person arrested on MV stop where officer discovered they had drugs. Once fingerprinted, ICE hit came back as a previously deported person, we contacted ICE and they came and got him.

Because Marr told aldermen last year that the MPD inquires about the immigration status of every arrestee, Girard at Large filed a Right to Know Request last September asking, for the number of illegal aliens identified by the department during arrests since 1/1/2025 and the number of illegal aliens turned over to ICE since 1/1/2025, categorized by those turned over because of a detainer request or turned over because they were a public safety threat.

In response, Lt. Jared Yaris wrote:

This is not data that Manchester Police Department tracks or maintains a record of.

Girard at Large responded with the following email to Marr:

 

Good morning, chief.

 

Attached, please find the response to my Right to Know request.  Given the information here, I have additional questions.

 

In response to questions posed by Alderman Kantor, you said that the department inquires about citizenship status when it arrests an individual.  If that’s the case, why would not the department keep record of the responses?  What’s the point of asking if data is not maintained?

 

The information sent also asserts that MPD doesn’t keep track of how many people it turns over to ICE, either via a detainer request or proactively.  Please advise as to why that is.

 

Thank you.

Marr responded:

Regarding to your first question, the citizenship question is asked as part of the fingerprint process using the AFIS machine. We are required to ask that question as part of the fingerprint process because the state requires it. It is the state’s data, not ours.

In regard to your other question, the way our system is set up we only log that we are holding a person for another agency, not which agency it is. So if we arrested someone on a warrant from another jurisdiction or were holding onto someone for a detainer, our report management system would show it as a “hold for other agency”. The data doesn’t delineate which agency we are holding people for.

Girard at Large filed a Right to Know Request with the NHSP to obtain the arrest data.  In a series of emails that concluded in early November, Attorney David M. Hilts on behalf of the NHSP said several things of interest, including:

  • …neither Manchester nor other municipalities report to us the statistics you’re seeking, i.e. the counts of arrested illegal aliens or illegal aliens turned over to ICE...
  • …to the extent that municipalities conducting fingerprint transactions provide the fingerprints and associated information to us for ultimate inclusion in Federal repositories, the information in our hands constitutes confidential criminal history record information per RSA 106-B:14, which is nonpublic.
  • Your requested statistics imply the need to perform research in order to “compile, cross-reference or assemble” information to create custom statistics, which State agencies are not required to create per RSA 91-A.
  • …country of citizenship is a category of information that could be collected (emphasis added) by a police department at the time of an AFIS fingerprint processing,
  • …if a police department provides that data, (emphasis added) i.e. any particular arrestee’s country of citizenship (if it’s known and collected by the PD), to us, that data is statutorily confidential and not public per RSA 106-B:14 as criminal history record information,
  • …that, on its way to the Federal government, we don’t have systems that can either search for or report out the country of citizenship information given to us by PDs,
  • even if the data could be searched, wasn’t statutorily confidential, and could accurately reflect illegal aliens that were arrested or given to ICE, we would decline to create those custom statistics for you.

So, Marr said the MPD is required to report immigration status information obtained from a fingerprint check in to the NHSP system and the NHSP says local police don’t have to do that and even when they do, the state doesn’t track it and won’t provide it because it would have to create a report they don’t have on data they don’t have, which is protected by law despite it not being had.

Under “new business,” starting at 1:59:18 of the August 4 BMA meeting, Alderman Crissy Kantor (R-Ward 6), who along with Alderman Ed Sapienza (R-Ward 8) led the charge to have the city’s police partner with ICE more than a year ago, asked if the department would be “deputized by ICE,” noting the benefits that would accrue as a result.  Marr, who renewed his opposition to partnering with ICE, raised numerous objections, including: a shortage of personnel, the need for training, and disinterest in the job among the officers.

He said he didn’t think “our officers doing federal work…would be a good use of resources,”

After additional questions and comments from Kantor, including about Troy’s efforts, Marr said his was the busiest police department in NH, “by far” and that he didn’t have the personnel or time to do the work enabled by an agreement with ICE.  “So you don’t have time to make a phone call,” asked Kantor.  “No, ma’am.  In order to be part of the program, you have to send people to training and I can’t send my entire department to training.”

“Essentially, what this boils down to is increasing the communication and cooperation with federal authorities and I don’t see how you wouldn’t want to do that,” said Sapienza to Marr, after Alderman Jason Bonilla (D-Ward 5) saying the PD’s job was to serve and protect all, “regardless of (immigration) status.”  Alderman Barry all but said that if an agreement was entered into, ICE would be shooting people at traffic stops as he said was recently done in Maine.

Sapienza challenged the assertion that entering into an agreement would increase the demand on the department’s resources and time because the city would be receiving help from ICE to remove illegal aliens from the streets.  “It would decrease the workload,” said Sapienza, noting that “federal dollars” would become available to the city. Said Sapienza:

“How is it anyone can read the article in the Keene Sentinel about the job the Troy Police Department is doing and not ask ‘why isn’t it happening here?”

Sapienza said he spoke with Troy Police Chief David Ellis and asked if there was some “secret sauce” to what they were doing.  The chief said “no,” explaining that when they pull someone over, they take ID from the driver and sometimes the passenger and run a standard check.  Officers contact ICE when the records check indicates the person here illegally.

“It’s all about communication, communication, communication and cooperation,” said Sapienza, who went on to explain that an ICE agent from the Manchester field office told him that many more illegal alien criminals would be removed from the streets if they went from “booking to booking” from Manchester PD to ICE  because many of them  are “in the wind” once released by MPD.  “Is it too much to ask that the booking department contacts federal authorities to let say we have that person (wanted by federal authorities) here?”

Marr said yes, again pointing to how the department’s booking operation is run.  Sapienza pressed the issue, noting that arrestees went from “custody to custody” transfer would improve the ability of both agencies to remove criminals here illegally from the city.  “I don’t see how it can be wrong for myself as an alderman or anybody as an alderman to say they’d like to see the communication and the cooperation from the Manchester Police Department improve…I don’t see it as asking a lot and quite frankly what I’m hearing is excuses.”

The discussion did not address how MPD turned over the four identified illegal aliens to ICE.  At least on arresting officer contacted ICE during a traffic stop.  If the booking officers on duty made the other 3 calls, then it would seem that MPD has demonstrated the ability to call ICE once officers know or suspect an arrestee is an illegal alien.  In fact, local jurisdictions do not need an agreement with ICE to either inquire about an arrestee’s status or advise ICE that an illegal alien is in their custody.

If no agreement or training is needed to either inquire about an arrestee’s status or notify ICE that an arrestee is an illegal alien, then why isn’t MPD making those calls?

Alderman June Trisciani (D-at-Large) moved to suspend the board’s rules and adopt a resolution supporting MPD’s current practice “as is and that we support our police department’s decision” with respect to handling illegal aliens.  The motion was seconded by Alderman Christine Fajardo (D-Ward 4).  Only Kantor and Sapienza voted “no.”  Alderman Ross Terrio (R-Ward 7) abstained, saying he didn’t think “he had all the facts.”  Mayor Jay Ruais, who frequently claims Manchester isn’t a sanctuary city, helped Trisciani clarify her motion before calling for the vote, which he could have vetoed, but didn’t.

Disclosure note:  The author of this article and publisher of this blog is the same Rich Girard written about in this article.