New Hampshire Gov. Kelly Ayotte slams Massachusetts sanctuary policies, migrant crisis

Lance Reynolds, Boston Herald on Jan 9, 2025

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Pointing out how Massachusetts has spent a fortune on housing migrants, newly sworn-in New Hampshire Gov. Kelly Ayotte says her administration won’t “allow that to happen” in Granite State and is inviting more Bay Staters to move north.

Ayotte kept her “Don’t Mass up New Hampshire” slogan alive during her inaugural speech on Thursday. She often mentioned Massachusetts on the campaign trail as a “cautionary tale,” she said.

“We also need to ban sanctuary policies in our state,” Ayotte said, “and I am counting on the legislature to do just that this term.”

“We’ve got the Massachusetts illegal immigrant crisis right down the road if you want to see what these dangerous policies do not just to communities, but to the state budget,” she added. “They’ve spent over a billion dollars housing migrants rather than investing in their law-abiding residents. We can’t allow that to happen here.”

Ayotte’s remarks come the same week as Gov. Maura Healey filed a $425 million spending bill to pay for the Bay State’s emergency shelter costs through the rest of this fiscal year — current money is expected to run dry by the end of January without another infusion.

The Healey administration spent just over $856 million in fiscal year 2024 on the migrant-family shelter program — less than originally projected — and has already doled out more than $357 million through the first half of fiscal year 2025, according to state data last updated Dec. 19.

Thousands of pages of “Serious Incident” reports, also released this week, expose incidents of child rape, domestic violence, brawls, drunkenness, drugs and more in the Massachusetts emergency housing shelter system.

Ayotte, a former U.S. senator and state attorney general, slammed the Bay State hard when she initially announced her campaign in July 2023, saying fentanyl had a pipeline into New Hampshire from “Biden’s open border to Massachusetts.”

Last March, Ayotte said Healey “should be ashamed of herself” after the Bay State governor said events like an alleged sexual assault at a Rockland migrant motel are “unfortunate” and “from time to time, things will happen.”

“That wasn’t the whole quote that I gave,” Healey told WBZ’s Jon Keller at the time. “What happened to this young victim — this 15-year-old girl — is exactly why the federal government needs to act.”

Healey declared that Massachusetts is “not a sanctuary state” in an end-of-year interview with the Herald, saying she believes “violent criminals should be deported if they’re not here lawfully” and that local, state, and federal law enforcement should work together to investigate and prosecute crimes and remove people from the country who are criminals.

Ayotte defeated Democrat and former Manchester Mayor Joyce Craig, whom Healey endorsed, in one of the most bitterly contested governor’s races. Ayotte replaces Republican Chris Sununu as New Hampshire’s governor.

“Look at the out-of-control spending, tax hikes, illegal immigrant crisis, people and businesses leaving in droves — what is normal today in Massachusetts wasn’t always this way,” Ayotte said Thursday. “Year after year, their model of higher taxes and more government has made it harder to run a small business and harder for families to make ends meet.”

Massachusetts again ranked the second worst state for one-way U-Haul movers last year, coming in 49th on the U-Haul Growth Index. A state agency spokesperson told the Herald last week there are signs that the out-migration trend is “reversing.”

From 2010 to 2023 (excluding 2020), New Hampshire served as the premier destination state for relocating Bay Staters with a net gain of 98,879 residents who flocked to the Granite State, Census Bureau estimates indicate.

“To the people of Massachusetts, our Bay State neighbors, I want you to know we love that you visit our communities, shop at our businesses, and enjoy our great outdoors,” Ayotte said. “To the businesses of Massachusetts, we’d love to have you bring your talents to the Granite State. Reach out to us — we’re happy to show you why it’s better here.”

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