There’s nothing partisan about due process.

I serve as Vice Chair of the Hampton Select Board. Along with four other board members, we oversee our town’s finances and set policy for our community.

On Monday, we took an important vote on the issue of immigration — and I want to explain my decision.

We currently live in a world where immigrants and their families are being terrorized by the Trump administration.

In Minneapolis today, an ICE agent killed a woman. They are showing up in communities wearing masks and snatching parents away from their children. Students are imprisoned for things they’ve written in the campus paper. And people who have lived in the United States their entire lives with no record of any wrongdoing are being deported.

Federal agents are even reportedly trying to turn a recently shuttered brewery in Merrimack, NH into an ICE detention facility.

These policies are dangerous. They undermine our democracy, and they do nothing to fix our immigration system. That’s why I voted on Monday to recommend a warrant article advising the Hampton Police Department against entering an immigration enforcement agreement with ICE.

I get it, local government officials in our state serve in non-partisan roles, and we put our community above our party affiliations and ideological commitments, but there is nothing partisan about due process.

Our current immigration system is broken — and that’s putting it lightly. Local leaders can and should take steps to support due process and protect our communities, but it’s going to take congressional action to truly fix this.

That’s why I’m running for Congress to fight for comprehensive reform. If you believe, as I do, that it’s time to build an immigration system that is just and humane, please sign up to volunteer or donate today!