CONCORD, N.H. (AP) – Immigrant groups protested and Democrats cried foul, but Wisconsin Republican Jim Sensenbrenner was unapologetic Thursday about taking the House Judiciary Committee on the road for an after-the-fact hearing on immigration reform.

Sensenbrenner, chairman of the committee, is leading the charge against a bipartisan Senate-passed immigration bill that would give millions of undocumented immigrants a chance to earn American citizenship. As the architect of a competing House-passed bill, he has been holding committee hearings across the country to emphasize the need for stricter border enforcement and penalizing employers who hire illegal aliens.

But Democrats and immigrant groups have questioned the need to hold hearings since both bills already have passed and await negotiations – in which Sensenbrenner plays a lead role – to hammer out a compromise. They criticized the hearings as political tactics to delay negotiations during an election year.

“House Republicans have changed a serious debate on immigration into a partisan game by holding public hearings around the country that are biased in both their design and intention,” said Rep. Martin Meehan, D-Mass., a committee member. “These hearings serve no purpose beyond vilifying hardworking immigrants.”

Sensenbrenner disagreed.

“I think that this was a tremendously useful hearing,” he said afterward. “I have no apologies in putting the issue of control of illegal immigration on the national agenda.”

Asked why New Hampshire – which has few immigrants – was picked over Massachusetts to host a New England hearing, Sensenbrenner said he was invited by New Hampshire Rep. Charles Bass, a fellow Republican. Besides that, immigrants weren’t his target audience, he said.

“I don’t think that the purpose of the hearings is necessarily to have immigrants turn out,” he said. “It is to get input from local people,” he said, referring to the invited witnesses.

As in past events, Thursday’s hearing took testimony from five preselected witnesses – three of whom had local ties – who had been invited to speak on the fairness, fiscal effects and legal impact of the Senate bill.

Peter Gadiel, of Kent, Conn., president of 9/11 Families for a Secure America, said providing illegal immigrants with a means to obtain legal status would unfairly reward them for breaking the law.

“The Senate calls this idea ‘a path to legalization,’ but to everyone else it’s a discrimination,” he said.

But John Young of New Boston, co-chairman of Agricultural Coalition for Immigration Reform, compared inaction on immigration reform to a dam about to burst.

“If we provide better legal channels that are in our own economic interest, and we find a way for those here undocumented to become legal, we will have released that pressure,” he said.

Young, who supports the Senate bill, was the only invited witness who also spoke at an immigrants rally before the hearing, where about 30 activists held signs reading “Give us a chance,” and “We Pay Taxes Too!”

“This hearing is totally stupid,” said Eva Castillo, a member of the Immigrants Rights Task Force, who used her bullhorn to shout slogans across the street to the Statehouse. “Let’s make those representatives hear us!”