Chris Muns at The Select Board: A Glimmer of Sanity and Stature

Yesterday, July 14, Bastille Day, at the meeting of the Select Board of Hampton, NH, people spoke in favor of allowing/forcing Hampton police to cooperate, aide, abet ICE officers in Hampton, and others spoke against it.

Chris Muns

As has been true at similar meetings, former chief of Hampton police, and former Selectman Rich Sawyer, and current Deputy Sheriff of Rockingham County (in which Hampton is located)  leapt up to set the stage for the discussion to follow by saying:

1. It is not within the power of the Select Board or any local government to refuse to cooperate with ICE. As a current Deputy Sheriff of Rockingham County his office has "entered into an agreement" with ICE which is meant to train police how to avoid getting sued, when they pull people who don't look like they come from here out of their cars, and hand them over to ICE. He said there is a lot of misinformation out there about the agreements between ICE and the sheriff and the Hampton Police. 

(This surprised Mad Dog because there is almost no information out there about what the Sheriff or the chief of Hampton police have agreed to. In fact, there has been a news black out about this. When asked exactly what has been agreed to or what is even being considered neither the Chief of Police nor the Sheriff has said word one.)

2. Nobody should worry about the police cooperating with ICE because police are the good guys.

Having been thus told that nothing we might have to say during the "Comments" part of the Select Board meeting would have the slightest effect on what is coming down the road from Governor Ayotte, the legislature in Concord and ICE itself, members of the seventy-five or so people who crowded in the basement at Town Hall got up to say what they came to say, no matter what Deputy Sheriff Sawyer said, or how dismissive he or anyone else might be.

Deputy Sheriff Sawyer's admonition did not seem to register with Hampton State Representative Linda McGrath, who promptly admonished the assembled citizens that illegal immigrants have flooded across the Southern border at the rate of 10 million a year,  100,000 of whom are dangerous felons, rapists and murderers. Where she got those numbers one can only imagine, but if you're interested, you might Google Qanon, or The Storm Front, or White, Aryan Nation. 

And not just that! Representative McGrath revealed, for the first time,  that just across our border, in Maine, are row houses filled with "Chinese Mafia," raring to rape and pillage in New Hampshire. 

She also complained that this is all just a question of concern to police, but some people are trying to introduce politics to it. 

It was all Mad Dog could do to stay in his seat and not rise up and shout: "There is nothing more political than this! Nothing more political than immigration! And you are political right down to your MAGA underpants!"

But Mad Dog was subdued by his friends who murmured: "Don't worry, Chris is going to speak."

Linda McGrath at Large

One could only pity the other Representatives from Hampton, who have to drive to Concord every week and listen to Ms. McGrath. Listening to her speak last night--she spoke twice--Mad Dog began wondering if it was such a good idea to reduce the number of psychiatric beds in the state, as the Republicans have done every time they get control, although now Mad Dog knows why they reduce those slots--presumably, on some level, they know who would be conveyed to those psychiatric facilities. These people know its better to be a state Rep than a resident of a psych ward, which is where they really, most sincerely do belong, Ding Dong.

And then, as promised, Chris Muns rose to speak. 

Chris is  one of the four Hampton representatives to the House of Representatives at Concord.  He noted (as you will see below) there is, in fact, something which can be done by the Select Board, and by extension, by all those Hampton citizens who cringe at the idea of masked goon squads waylaying roofers, or landscapers who are trying to drive to and from jobs in Hampton guilty of the crime of looking like they don't come from hereabouts.

Chris Muns is well known in Hampton from his work in Concord as a Representative, from his work with the Hampton schools and from many campaigns where he went door to door for thousands of doors.  He is ordinarily the essence of fairness, tact and civility.

Last night he got his Dutch up, one might say.

Here is the text  of what Representative Muns said:

.

"Members of the Board:

Establishing and enforcing our immigration laws is a federal responsibility. As we struggle to fix our broken immigration system, we need to support the difficult job law enforcement has enforcing the immigration laws currently on the books. And we need to make sure everything we ask them to do is consistent not only with those laws but the moral principles upon which this country was founded.

Two of those are that in America EVERYONE is considered innocent until proven guilty and EVERYONE is entitled to due process under the law. We must not stray from those principles, and we must not allow our LOCAL police officers to be put in a position where they may be forced to stray from them.

There are well-established practices and procedures in place that our police officers follow when they stop or detain someone to determine if there are any outstanding warrants against that individual from other jurisdictions, including their federal partners. There is no reason why they should not continue to follow those practices and procedures if they identify someone with an outstanding immigration related charge against them.

But our local police department should NOT enter into a so-called section 287(g) agreement with ICE. These agreements deputize local law enforcement as agents of ICE and make them available to participate in enforcement actions ICE chooses to take. Not only will the federal government NOT reimburse the town for any expenses incurred by our officers while engaged in those activities but given some of the questionable practices of ICE we have seen, it could expose those officers and the town to significant legal liability. SB62 which was signed into law by Governor Ayotte gives our Chief of Police the authority to enter into one of these agreements and removes you – our Select Board –from that process. I have the utmost respect for our Police Chief and the work he and everyone in our police department has done to build and maintain trust in our community. That is precisely why I do not want us to put him in the position of having to make this decision – on his own – without any input from “we the people” of Hampton, particularly as the pressure from ICE and Governor Ayotte’s administration increases.

SB62 is also an unfunded state mandate, increasing our share of law enforcement costs that the state already does not reimburse us for.

To provide our Chief of Police with a sense of where you – the elected leaders of our town – stand on this issue, I urge you pass a “sense of the board” resolution stating that it is not – at the present time – in the best interests of our town for our Police Department to enter into any additional agreements to provide additional assistance enforcing our immigration laws over and above what they are already doing."

And so, Mad Dog heaved a sigh of relief. 

Decency may not prevail, but it survives.