BERLIN, N.H. — After touring the federal prison complex at FCI Berlin, which now houses an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention unit, U.S. Rep. Maggie Goodlander said the agency’s lack of transparency and growing budget are undermining public trust and shifting burdens onto local communities.
Goodlander, who spoke in Littleton following her visit to Berlin, said her role in Congress is to “exercise oversight over every federal department and agency,” and described U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement as having unprecedented resources but insufficient public accountability.
“ICE has taken up an enormous amount of my time and energy, because right now, ICE has more funding than all other federal law enforcement agencies combined,” she said, adding that the agency is funded for years ahead even as the Justice Department has reportedly abandoned more than 23,000 cases as money is redirected to immigration enforcement.
During her visit, Goodlander said the Berlin facility — one of the newest federal prisons in the country — is currently holding “about 100 detainees” in its ICE unit and remains understaffed. She said the agency moved into the prison because it had “a lot of space available,” but questioned how ICE is deploying its resources.
“To me, public safety depends on public trust, and right now, public trust in ICE has eroded to historic lows because ICE is not operating transparently,” Goodlander said, pointing to plans for an ICE detention facility in Merrimack that were advanced without the knowledge of the public or state officials until February and were ultimately withdrawn.
She contrasted ICE’s operations with those of local police departments.
“You don’t see any police departments operating in that way,” she said.
Goodlander framed her concerns in part around what she described as “downshifting,” where federal funding decisions — such as the Department of Justice freezing $820 million in grants last year — push financial and operational burdens onto towns.
“When you take resources away from grant programs that are lifelines for our police departments, you downshift a whole lot of burden,” she said. “Every taxpayer dollar should be accountable and transparently spent, and that’s just not what we’re seeing in the case of ICE, and that’s a huge problem that should be corrected, in my view.”
Her comments come as communities across northern New Hampshire debate participation in ICE’s 287(g) program, which allows local officers to carry out certain immigration enforcement functions under federal supervision.
In Carroll, voters earlier this month split evenly, 82-82, on a nonbinding article asking whether the Carroll Police Department should withdraw from its agreement with ICE. The vote followed an incident in which seven residents were taken into ICE custody with police assistance; four were later released after more than a month in detention, reportedly due to pending asylum applications.
Despite the split vote, the department has said it will continue its participation. Lt. Ian M. MacMillan said the vote “has not caused the department to rethink its agreement.”
In nearby Whitefield, officials are moving in the opposite direction. The Select Board voted unanimously in March to support Police Chief Max Hodgdon’s request to pursue a 287(g) agreement, citing potential access to federal training and information systems.
A national report published March 24 by WIRED highlighted the financial side of such agreements, describing federal reimbursements and incentives tied to participation. Carroll officials said the town recently received more than $122,000 in program funding, along with smaller reimbursements tied to specific enforcement actions.
Civil liberties advocates have raised concerns about potential legal and financial risks for municipalities that participate. A report by the American Civil Liberties Union warns that local governments involved in 287(g) agreements could face liability related to wrongful detention or civil rights violations, potentially exposing towns to costly litigation.
Goodlander said those broader concerns — including transparency, funding priorities and public confidence — are central to her oversight work.
“I was in a town in the Monadnock region just a couple of days ago, and I asked the town, why didn’t you sign up for a 287(g) agreement?” she said. “And the answer was because ICE hasn’t been living up to its obligations in every case. The towns actually aren’t seeing the resources come from these agreements. Some are, but not all.”
That town’s decision reflects a lack of trust in ICE, “an agency that has had less sunlight than ever before, and more resources than ever before,” she said.
She also raised concerns about ICE preparedness and training standards.
“It’s also a problem about professionalism,” Goodlander said. “The training standards are not what you would see in a town like this, and that doesn’t inspire public trust.”
Goodlander said Congress approved what she described as “a blank check of over $150 billion” for ICE and border security “with no parameters or guardrails,” contrasting that with the budget pressures facing small towns.
Goodlander said she is pushing for what she called “common sense guardrails,” arguing that the issue is not whether ICE should be funded, but whether communities can trust how that funding is used.
“Every taxpayer dollar should be accountable and transparently spent, and that’s just not what we’re seeing in the case of ICE,” she said.
She tied those concerns to broader questions about how federal enforcement actions — including the killings of U.S. citizens Alex Pretti and Renee Good — affect local communities.
“These taxpayer dollars are being used in other communities to shoot American citizens dead in broad daylight, and I don’t want to see that happen in New Hampshire,” she said. “I don’t want to see that happen anywhere in America.”
