Undercover Video Shows Stefany Shaheen Vowing to Dismantle ICE Two Days Before She Denied It

New Hampshire Democrat Stefany Shaheen told voters on a debate stage last week that she never called for abolishing immigration enforcement. A hidden camera caught her saying the opposite two days earlier.

In footage recorded Oct. 17 and published by The Daily Wire on Friday, an undercover reporter asks Shaheen how Democrats could stop ICE. "I think we have to pull back the funding for Homeland Security," she says. "And we need to dismantle ICE." Cutting off the money is "the number one thing we can do," she adds, and it would eventually "put them out of work."

Shaheen, the daughter of retiring Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, is running against Republican Anthony DiLorenzo for the 1st Congressional District seat Rep. Chris Pappas is giving up to run for the Senate.

The denial

At New England College's "Live Free or Die" debate in Henniker on Oct. 19, DiLorenzo said his opponent had advocated abolishing immigration enforcement. "That is not true," Shaheen said, according to the Daily Wire's account of the exchange. "You said it," DiLorenzo shot back. "I did not," she answered.

It wasn't the first time she'd said it. At a University of New Hampshire forum on Oct. 5, Shaheen said "We need to dismantle ICE," NH Journal reported. When moderator Kevin Sullivan asked whether she meant "dismantle and rebuild," she answered: "Dismantle," before adding there was "a chance to rebuild with a stated purpose." At the WMUR Democratic primary debate in September she said "Trump's ICE needs to be dismantled," according to the same report.

So the record now shows at least three times she called for dismantling the agency, the last one on hidden camera, followed by a flat denial in front of voters.

What she says she wants

Shaheen's campaign website calls for ICE to be "completely overhauled," with body cameras, a ban on masks, no warrantless searches, no raids at schools, churches and hospitals, and "no ICE warehouses anywhere in New Hampshire," the Daily Wire reported. Earlier this year she helped organize opposition to a planned ICE processing center in Merrimack, which was dropped in February after Gov. Kelly Ayotte raised concerns with DHS.

At the Oct. 19 debate, when the Laken Riley Act came up (the first bill President Trump signed this term, named for the Georgia nursing student murdered by an illegal alien), Shaheen said the law passed before recent shootings and added: "It is not acceptable for ICE agents to unleash terror," per NH Journal.

DiLorenzo, a Portsmouth businessman who owns Key Auto Group, backs ICE enforcing current law and wants both the southern and northern borders secured, according to the Granite Post.

Why it matters

Entering the country illegally is itself a federal crime under 8 U.S.C. 1325, and coming back after deportation is a felony under 8 U.S.C. 1326. ICE is the agency that enforces those laws inside the country. Republicans' One Big Beautiful Bill gave DHS the money to hire thousands of new agents, the Daily Wire noted. Defunding Homeland Security until ICE agents are "out of work," as Shaheen described it, would end that enforcement.

The Cook Political Report rates the race "Likely Democratic," and the district narrowly backed Kamala Harris in 2024. The Daily Wire said it asked Shaheen's campaign for comment; no response was included in its report.

New Hampshire votes Nov. 3. Voters there now have her answer on tape, and her denial on stage, to compare.