PORTLAND, Maine — Arrests of undocumented but otherwise law-abiding immigrants spiked in New England during the first six months of Donald Trump’s presidency, more than tripling from the same period last year.
Across the region, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents also detained more undocumented immigrants who committed crimes, but arrests of those without criminal records rose at a much higher rate, according to agency data obtained by the Bangor Daily News through a public records request.
The New England pattern mirrors the national arrest figures, and shows that the Trump administration is more aggressively targeting immigrants whose only transgression is living in the United States without legal status — which is often a civil violation, not a crime. And it is reflected by enforcement in Maine, according to an immigrant advocacy group, despite the state’s low rate of illegal immigration
“There is a general feeling of fear, anxiety and confusion in the immigrant communities,” said Susan Roche, executive director of the Portland-based Immigrant Legal Advocacy Project. “Even for individuals who are not impacted by the new policies, there is a fear that somehow the laws will change and impact them.”
Federal agents arrested 1,570 immigrants in New England and 77,974 across the country from January 20 to July 20, according to the ICE data. These figures far exceed the number of arrests during the same period in the final year of Barack Obama’s presidency. Most of the increase is accounted for by more aggressive targeting of illegal immigrants without criminal records.
In New England, the arrests of immigrants without a criminal record more than tripled to 631, compared with 206 during the same period last year — while the arrests of undocumented immigrants who committed crimes rose only 21 percent.
Across the county, immigration arrests for people who’d committed crimes increased about 20 percent, while the arrest rate for immigrants without criminal records rose more than 260 percent in the same period.
Both nationally and in New England, a majority of the immigrants ICE agents arrested during the first half of 2016 had been convicted of a crime. And an agency spokesman said that since 2010 ICE has arrested far more immigrants with criminal records than ones without.
But the increase in arrests of undocumented immigrants without criminal records accounts for 59 percent of the rise in national immigration arrests, comparing the first six months of Trump’s presidency with the same period in 2016.
The national arrest count remains slightly lower than it was in the first half of 2014, one of the peak years of Obama’s deportation push. But in New England, ICE arrested more immigrants with and without criminal records during the first six months of Trump’s presidency than during the same period in 2014.
The ICE arrest statistics are not broken down by state, but most of the New England arrests were likely not in Maine, which is estimated to be among the states with the fewest unauthorized immigrants.
Nonetheless, Maine immigration lawyers have seen an increase in the number of immigrants arrested here. And many of these people do not have criminal records, according to Roche, of the Immigrant Legal Advocacy Project.
In pursuing immigrants who have committed crimes, ICE agents have also more frequently asked jails to hold people beyond their scheduled release dates.
In New England, ICE agents made more than 1,000 of these controversial requests during the first half of 2017, far exceeding those made in the last three years. Nationally, ICE made more than 78,000 such requests, dramatically surpassing the two previous years and rising to around the level hit in 2014 under Obama.
Last week, Cumberland County Sheriff Kevin Joyce became the first law enforcement official in Maine to say he would not honor these requests. Known as detainers, they have become slightly more common in recent months, Joyce said.
Federal courts have ruled that holding someone in jail beyond their scheduled release can violate their constitutional rights, but Gov. Paul LePage is trying to force Joyce and other Maine sheriffs to honor ICE’s requests.
LePage has threatened to fire sheriffs who defy him, but seems hesitant to begin what would likely be messy and contentious removal processes.