LEWISTON, Maine — A hotline set up by an advocacy group to track federal immigration enforcement in Maine was ringing constantly at times on Tuesday.
It marked the start of a surge from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement into Maine that has been expected since last week. The Maine Immigrants’ Rights Coalition, which runs the hotline, confirmed two reports, while at least 15 other cases were reported on an online, crowdsourced database.
“It’s pretty clear that an ICE surge started today,” Panagioti Tsolkas, a spokesperson for the Maine Immigrants’ Rights Coalition, said.
By Tuesday evening, it was unclear how many arrests had been made. Agents were typically reported to be working in small groups and traveling in vehicles with out-of-state license plates. The volume of activity is unprecedented in Maine so far, although awareness has been heightened since political figures teased the uptick in enforcement last week.
Monday, a federal holiday, was quiet with little to no reports of ICE activity. That changed on Tuesday morning, when reports came early in the day centered on the Portland area and later in Lewiston, the cities in Maine with the most notable immigrant populations.
One confirmed ICE sighting was in Westbrook around 8 a.m. when two armed agents left a business parking lot after a report of them allegedly watching children board a school bus. Another call, which Tsolkas said was verified by the coalition, was about five armed agents in three unmarked vehicles at 7:45 a.m. in Portland.
It’s unclear how many people were arrested across the state. A spokesperson for ICE said earlier in the day that the agency would not answer questions about the operation and did not respond to another request for comment later in the day.
In Portland, both Deering High School and Lincoln Middle School had a brief lock out around 9 a.m. Tuesday because of potential immigration enforcement activity on Brighton Avenue. Lockouts were lifted within minutes after it was determined that the activity did not affect the schools, school department spokesperson Tess Nacelewicz said.
There is “heightened fear” as rumors and reports about ICE swirl, Lewiston City Councilor Joshua Nagine said.
“The escalation in fear is clouding some people’s ability to make sound decisions,” Nagine said. “Escalation by the community could result in pushback from law enforcement, and I don’t think there should be a conflict at this point in time.”
The uptick in enforcement comes after the administration of President Donald Trump surged ICE agents into Minnesota following dozens of welfare fraud prosecutions focused on the Somali community. Both asylum seekers and refugees have been arrested there. The Justice Department has reportedly issued subpoenas to Gov. Tim Walz and other Democratic officials there into whether politicians impeded immigration enforcement.
There has been related political fallout in Maine. An immigrant health provider was suspended from MaineCare last month over alleged interpreter fraud, a problem that was flagged by an investigator in a report prepared for police five years ago. A case that was quietly prosecuted earlier this year focused on a different company that billed millions to MaineCare.
Protests have been massive in Minneapolis, where an immigration agent shot and killed a woman in her car earlier this month. Maine U.S. Attorney Andrew Benson, a Trump appointee and former judge, released a Monday statement warning against endangering or impeding ICE. There were no major encounters between agents and observers reported on Tuesday.
Absences at South Portland schools were higher than average on Tuesday, the Portland Press Herald reported. The Maine Immigrants’ Rights Coalition is working with community organizations to deliver food and get children to appointments and school.
The lack of clear communication about what ICE’s mission is and what they plan to do leaves “a lot of room for interpretation,” which only causes fear to escalate, said Nagine, the Lewiston councilor..
“I want to avoid conflict in my community,” he said.
Bangor Daily News writers Sawyer Loftus and Callie Ferguson contributed to this report.