New Hampshire voters voice immigration concerns

New Hampshire is situated almost 2,400 miles away from one of the United States’ busiest southern border crossings, El Paso in Texas, and just 10,000 undocumented immigrants live there. This is a dramatic low in comparison with states such as California, Florida and Texas, but its people are still very much concerned about the issue of illegal immigration.

Voters in the small state, the demographic of which skews predominantly white, are posing difficult questions to Republican presidential candidate nominees with regard to what they will do about the problem if they win the White House later this year. A number of voters want more than just Donald Trump calling for a wall; they want solutions that are fundamentally fair while still addressing concerns regarding the economy and national security.

Brookline voter Bob Belanger objects to the idea that New Hampshire residents being worried about immigration somehow equates to xenophobia. “We just want to know who’s coming in the front door of our country,” he notes, adding that illegal workers drive down benefits and wages for legal US citizens.

94 percent of the 1.3 million people who live in New Hampshire, which heads to the polls on February 9th for the second primary season contest, are white, census data from 2014 indicates. The Hispanic/Latino demographic in the state is just 3.3 percent of the overall population in comparison with 17.7 in general across the United States, with just five percent foreign born in comparison with the nationwide figure of 13 percent.