Changes in legal interpretations and enforcement put New Hampshire in the immigration spotlight
Unprecedented
Changes in legal interpretations and enforcement put New Hampshire in the immigration spotlight
February 9, 2026
In 2025, there were a few congressionally passed changes to immigration laws, including the Laken Riley Act and increased funding for enforcement in HR 1 (aka One Big Beautiful Bill Act). However, some of the more dramatic changes were shifts in how legal policies are interpreted. The change in interpretations and departure from longstanding norms has created a lot of confusion.
“The biggest change is the fear, just the sort of overall nerves and panic that people are feeling, and they’re not wrong,” says Ron Abramson, an immigration attorney with Shaheen & Gordon.
“We’ve dealt with people getting detained illegally and are spending a lot more time in federal court than we ever did before, challenging what we frame as unlawful detention cases, where suddenly the government’s reinterpreting statutes that had been interpreted a certain way for 30 years.”
So far, immigration attorneys are winning those challenges, Abramson said: “By and large, the overwhelming majority of federal judges around the country who have considered the issue have disagreed with the government’s interpretation and granted what’s called habeas corpus relief and either ordered that people get bond hearings in immigration court or just ordered them released.”
Immigration policy’s impact on community
The cascading impact of the shifting immigration landscape has impacts beyond immigrants to our wider communities, schools and states. This has a disproportionate impact on communities of color and mixed-status families.
While immigration is a federal issue, the repercussions of these laws and policy interpretations are felt at the state and local levels.
More than a dozen town and county police departments, plus the New Hampshire State Police, have signed agreements under the 287(g) program to assist with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detentions.
While some lawyers may specialize in niche areas of immigration law — only entertainer visas, for example — immigration lawyers in New Hampshire, like Abramson, are often covering a range of issues.
Xiaotian Liu (center) speaks at a press conference with Ron Abramson (left), of Shaheen & Gordon, and Gilles Bissonnette, legal director of the ACLU of New Hampshire. Liu challenged a Trump administration move to cancel his record of immigration in an online database, on April 22, 2025. Photo/ Granite State News Collaborative Partners
“I do everything from family-based immigration to citizenship, to removal defense, to business visas (both immigrant and non-immigrant), to a lot of general advice,” Abramson said. “I end up spending a fair amount of time advising criminal defense lawyers and individuals about how to minimize adverse immigration consequences if they do get into trouble.”
Within the complexities and layers of immigration law, one slight misstep — from a late form to a traffic ticket — can create a devastating impact on a person’s legal status or ability to navigate everyday life.
Abramson said that most people are trying their best to follow the law. Immigration is a civil issue, but it can feel more severe in that it lacks the due process procedures that criminal cases have.
“If you are potentially detained or going to be incarcerated for a criminal case, you have the right to a court-appointed lawyer, a constitutional right to remain silent, suppression issues for any illegally obtained evidence, the list goes on,” Abramson said. “Immigration doesn’t provide those protections.”
New Hampshire’s impact on immigration law
New Hampshire has found itself in the spotlight in at least three major challenges to policy concerns related to immigration and citizenship.
The American Civil Liberties Union of New Hampshire joined other organizations on behalf of the New Hampshire Indonesian Community Support in a challenge to President Donald Trump’s day-one executive order that sought to strip certain babies born in the United States of their U.S. citizenship.
Trump’s order seeks to end birthright citizenship — the guarantee of citizenship to almost everyone born in the United States. Some 30 countries offer birthright citizenship.
Under the order, which has never gone into effect, people born in the country would not be automatically entitled to citizenship if both parents were here illegally or temporarily. The challengers argue that the order conflicts with the 14th Amendment of the Constitution and the court’s longstanding case law.
Among the families impacted by this lawsuit are members of the New Hampshire Indonesian Community Support. One couple arrived in 2023, applied for asylum, and their application is awaiting review while the expectant mother was in her third trimester. If this executive order had been allowed to take effect, the baby would have been considered an undocumented non-citizen and could be denied basic health care and nutrition, putting the newborn at grave risk at such a vulnerable stage of life.
The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to hear arguments on this case in 2026.
The fragility of legal status
In the spring, a Dartmouth College researcher was among thousands of international students whose visa status was revoked without notice.
ICE had begun terminating thousands of students’ Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS) records, in many cases over what lawyers say were minor disciplinary records that the government uncovered after running background checks. Dozens of judges had issued temporary holds before the federal government restored the records.
Xiaotian Liu had been able to continue his studies and work under such a temporary order, and by August had his record fully restored. During these proceedings while Liu’s SEVIS record was deleted, his F-1 student status was never terminated.
In this case, Liu had not done anything wrong, but a bureaucratic update threw his work and studies into jeopardy and required time and finances from him, the school, law firms and the government to correct.
A resolved issue resurfaces
Over the summer, a lawful permanent resident of Peterborough, NH, was detained at the U.S.-Canadian border over old misdemeanor offenses. Christopher Landry, then 46, has lived in the United States as a green card holder since he was 5. He is married and has three children, who are all U.S. citizens. Landry pled guilty to misdemeanor drug charges in his 20s. After visiting family in his native Canada, he was prevented from reentering the United States. Ultimately, he was able to get those old charges vacated on the grounds of insufficient counsel under the Sixth Amendment and allowed to return home after about a month.
“While many U.S. citizens might pursue an annulment of criminal charges to negate the impact of a poor decision they made years ago, immigration law does not recognize such annulments. The age of the convictions and subsequent years of law-abiding behavior do not matter to immigration authorities,” Abramson said in a statement at the conclusion of this case. “An individual must instead demonstrate that there was a defect in the original conviction, as we have shown in Mr. Landry’s case.”
This is another example of how an immigrant who has been a model resident for two decades could be separated from his family for an extended time over what would be a small legal issue otherwise.
Christopher Landry, who holds a green card and has lived in Peterborough for 43 years, had been denied reentry to the United States due to past misdemeanor charges. Photo/ Granite State News Collaborative Partners
“There are a lot of people who are following the law as laid out and established for years, decades or longer, who are finding themselves in immigration custody because of different enforcement priorities or these reinterpretations of custody rules,” Abramson said. “Again, most of those challenges are successful because courts — actual courts, not immigration courts, which are administrative — are determining that folks’ due process rights are being violated constantly.”
Ripple Effects of shifting interpretations
These detainments and paperwork challenges raised concerns, not just for immigrants in the United States but also for citizens.
“The most unprecedented shift this year has been the number of panicky American citizens, both naturalized and natural born, who are worried about getting in trouble, either for a protest-related activity or being unable to return after international travel,” Abramson said. “And there was a wave of those kinds of calls; there were just dozens and dozens.”
The federal immigration rhetoric has increased stress, particularly for non-white people living here. Abramson believes that much of the rhetoric is fueled by a lack of nuance.
“There’s a lot of ignorance,” he said. “Some of that is sort of willful, and some of that is just people are not interested in understanding any of these issues. The biggest one is, there is ‘breaking the law’ and there is criminal behavior, and those are not always the same thing.”
Under an administration that is doubling down on enforcement, it’s critical that non-citizens living in the United States — whether refugees, asylum seekers, visa holders or green card holders — stay current on all paperwork renewals. Even one late form can snowball into issue obtaining legal identification, licenses, or school or work permits.
“The concrete takeaways are, if you are not a U.S. citizen, regardless of your status, you need to consult with somebody who knows about this to make sure you’re OK,” Abramson said.
As with some of the previously adjudicated cases in New Hampshire and the country this past year, small conflicts can quickly have outsized consequences. Increased volume of immigration cases will also mean it will be slower and more expensive to resolve cases.
“What we have had to prepare people for is that things are going to be harder. They’re going to take longer. They’re going to be more expensive when we’re talking about our fees and our time,” Abramsom said. “The more the government moves personnel and resources into investigations and enforcement, that’s fewer resources they’re dedicating to service and benefits. So that means processing times are longer than they’ve ever been. … The takeaway is be prepared. Be proactive. Don’t be reactive. If a person who’s not a U.S. citizen gets into even very minor trouble, even if it’s a misunderstanding, they should consult with a lawyer who knows about immigration and criminal law, because very small legal problems can have huge ramifications.”
