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The New Hampshire State Police applied to be deputized with the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, which, if approved, will allow officers to question, detain, and arrest individuals based on their immigration status.
“It is critical for state and local law enforcement to cooperate with federal authorities and protect our citizens,” New Hampshire Governor Kelly Ayotte said in a statement. “Criminals who are in our country illegally and pose a danger should be apprehended and removed.”
The New Hampshire State Police and Gorham Police Department are two of 32 pending program applications to work with ICE through section 287(g) of the Immigration and Nationality Act.
287(g) allows ICE “to delegate to state and local law enforcement officers the authority to perform specified immigration officer functions under the agency’s direction and oversight.” Agencies, like sheriff’s offices or department of corrections, can apply for one of three types of support, including jail enforcement model or a warrant service officer program.
New Hampshire State Police and Gorham’s department both applied for a task force model, according to a list of pending agencies released by ICE Thursday morning.
The task force model is a “force multiplier,” allowing police to enforce “limited” immigration authority, including arrests and questioning individuals about their immigration status, during routine police duties, according to ICE. The model was discontinued in 2012 during the Obama administration due to allegations of racial profiling.
“We are pleased to see that the federal government is interested in reinstating the task force model, which would grant both legal authority and protection to our State Troopers when they encounter individuals in the United States illegally,” New Hampshire Department of Safety Commissioner Robert Quinn said in a statement.
Previously, then-Governor Christopher Sununu petitioned the Department of Homeland Security for local officials to aid in patrolling the northern border through Section 287(g). At the time, the ACLU of New Hampshire also told DHS that, despite Sununu’s assertion, there was not a crisis at the Canadian border.
“We are particularly concerned because the State Police, the state’s largest law enforcement agency, has a history of engaging in pretextual police stops where questions of racial bias have been raised,” the ACLU wrote. “These incidents give us grave concern about how the State Police will operate if given the expanded powers it is requesting.”
While not listed in ICE’s list of pending agencies, Belknap County Sheriff Bill Wright said his office has also applied to enter a 287(g) agreement.
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Two people are dead and another person has serious injuries following a crash Friday in Rumney, New Hampshire.
The Rumney Fire Department says it responded to Route 25 just after 1:30 p.m. for a motor vehicle crash with entrapment. Crews, including from Plymouth-Fire Rescue and the Wentworth Fire Department, arrived on scene to find two vehicles in the road that appeared to have been involved in a head-on collision.
The driver from one vehicle was taken to a local hospital with serious injuries, the fire department said. The driver and a passenger in the second vehicle were both pronounced dead on scene.
The victims’ names have not been released at this time.
Route 25 was closed for approximately five hours for an on-scene investigation and clean up, the fire department said.
It’s unclear what caused the fatal crash. The Rumney Police Department is investigating.
An eagle-eyed photographer captured the moment a shining fireball cut across the sky in southeast New Hampshire early Saturday evening.
Rob Wright, a professional photographer based in New Hampshire, shared dash camera footage of the suspected meteor — which he called a “bright green boldie” — blazing straight downwards while he was cruising through Portsmouth.
“That was one of the best I’ve seen and likely the best I’ve ever caught on camera,” Wright boasted on Facebook.
Wright was approaching a traffic circle in the coastal town when a pulsing yellow light appeared in the sky. It tracked downwards in a straight line and released a brighter spurt of light before disappearing entirely, all in the span of eight seconds, according to the video.
Others in Nashua and Londonderry, both located southwest of Portsmouth and closer to the Massachusetts border, told WMUR that they also saw the suspected meteor.
Several other highlighted sightings around the same time in Dover, Bedford, Rindge, Hooksett and Jaffrey, which are all within a 90-mile radius of Portsmouth, according to the American Meteor Society.
Locals who follow Wright’s work reported seeing the fireball, too. One woman who also lives in Portsmouth commented that she “thought it must have been a firework.”
It’s unclear what exactly the fireball was.
Meteorites present similarly to a fireball when they’re plummeting from orbit — but leave a more obvious impact.
In August, a 3-foot meteor splintered in the air while it was flying over Georgia and left fragments scattered all over Newton County. The explosion caused a sonic boom equivalent to 20 tons of TNT exploding at once.
Pieces of the meteor were found all over the county, including one that crashed through the roof of a home.
Over the summer in 2024, a meteor disintegrated about 30 miles above Midtown Manhattan. The force shook parts of New York City, rattling midday commuters.
Firefighters from multiple northern New Hampshire communities helped battle a blaze at a home near Loon Mountain on Saturday night.
Campton-Thornton Fire Rescue said in a Facebook post Sunday morning that they responded to the fire on Crooked Mountain Road in Lincoln around 7 p.m. Several other area departments also responded and helped shuttle water to the scene from a site in nearby Woodstock.
No one was home at the time and no firefighters were injured battling the blaze. Fire crews cleared the scene around 4 a.m.
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