The Police Commission recently held a community dialogue about the presence of the Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers in Portsmouth . From that dialogue and from many conversations individual commissioners have had over the past two months, we learned that many in Portsmouth are very curious about the intersection of ICE and the Portsmouth Police Department and about the role of cities and states in immigration issues.

Though the City Council has issued a resolution expressing its concerns surrounding ICE, no clear statement about ICE’s presence in the city and at Pease has been put forward. What follows is the Police Commission’s effort to do so.

Immigration in the U.S. is a federal function, not a state or local function. The Supreme Court has repeatedly affirmed fe

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