Roughly 80 protestors gathered Thursday in Bangor to oppose the government’s plans to provide more funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The group gathered outside the Bangor office of U.S. Sen. Susan Collins on Harlow Street around noon to demand that the Republican senator not advance a spending bill that includes funding for the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE.
Collins voted to advance the spending bill on Thursday, which would provide billions of dollars to DHS. The bill was ultimately blocked from moving forward in a 45-55 vote. The government now faces a partial shutdown if a deal is not reached by Friday.
The protest came the same day that ICE’s ongoing surge in Maine — dubbed “Catch of the Day” — ended, according to Collins. People across the state have protested the operation, which has resulted in the arrests of more than 200 people as of Jan. 23, according to DHS.
Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Graham Platner, who led the Thursday rally, was skeptical of Collins’ message that ICE operations would cease.
“Senator Collins is going to use this moment to trick us, to say that she somehow used her power to impose upon ICE. We all know it’s all nonsense. What she’s actually doing is trying to justify to us why she is about to give them $9 billion more in funding,” Platner said.
Everett Ottinger, a vegetable farmer from Newburgh, joined Thursday’s protest with a sign constructed from a piece of rebar, a sheet of plywood and spray paint. It read “What will be your legacy?” on one side and “ICE = deputized Proud Boys” on the other.
Ottinger said he made the sign as a way to get Collins to question how her votes construct her legacy as a representative.
This was his first time at any type of demonstration, he said, and he was lured out by the feeling that he needed to try to influence Collins, even if she wasn’t going to acknowledge the gathering.
“I don’t have faith in Congress to do the right thing, but you have to do something,” Ottinger said.
Platner announced yesterday he would attend this protest in Bangor, and another in Portland, to call on Collins to vote down the funding bill.
ICE shouldn’t be funded because it has been detaining American residents with no criminal record, Platner said.
Reporting by the BDN and other news organizations in Maine suggests that ICE has detained people without criminal records or immigration infractions, including a Cumberland County corrections recruit.
The recruit had passed background checks with a “squeaky clean” record, Cumberland County Sheriff Kevin Joyce previously said.
Platner spoke about Alex Pretti, the 37-year-old nurse who was fatally shot by federal immigration agents in Minneapolis on Jan. 24, and others who have been killed by ICE agents or died in the agency’s custody.
The deaths show why ICE should not be funded in the upcoming bill, he said.
“As someone who still occasionally carries a legal firearm, because I use my constitutional rights as an American in Maine, it’s beyond disgusting to see this administration use that as justification for the murder of an American hero,” Platner said.
Pretti had a permitted handgun in his waistband when federal agents approached him. Video shows an agent removing the gun before Pretti was shot.