New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu is publicly calling on US President Donald Trump, a fellow Republican, to halt an effort to deport 69 Indonesian Christians who fled violence in that country two decades ago and are living illegally in the state.
The group had been living near the state's coast under the terms of a 2010 deal worked out with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) that allowed them to remain so long as they handed in their passports and turned up for regular check-ins with immigration officials.
That changed starting in August when members of the group who arrived for scheduled meetings with ICE officials at the agency's Manchester, New Hampshire, office were told to buy one-way plane tickets back to Indonesia, which they fled after 1998 riots that left about 1000 people dead.
"I am respectfully requesting that your administration reconsider its decision to deport these individuals, and I urge a resolution that will allow them to remain in the United States," Sununu said in a letter to Trump dated Friday, which his office made public on Monday.
Several members of the group, who are all ethnic Chinese, told Reuters they fear that they would face discrimination or violence if they returned to the world's largest majority-Muslim country.
"While I firmly believe that we must take steps to curb illegal immigration, it is also imperative that we make the process for legal immigration more streamlined and practical," Sununu wrote.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
Immigration advocates have filed lawsuits in Boston on behalf of 47 members of the group asking a federal court judge to intervene.
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