The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement surge is over.
That’s according to U.S. Sen. Susan Collins’ office, which announced the end of the surge in a Thursday morning press release.
“While the Department of Homeland Security does not confirm law enforcement operations, I can report that Secretary Noem has informed me that ICE has ended its enhanced activities in the State of Maine,” Collins said in a statement. “There are currently no ongoing or planned large-scale ICE operations here. I have been urging Secretary Noem and others in the Administration to get ICE to reconsider its approach to immigration enforcement in the state. I appreciate the Secretary’s willingness to listen to and consider my recommendations and her personal attention to the situation in Maine. ICE and Customs and Border Patrol will continue their normal operations that have been ongoing here for many years. I will continue to work with the Secretary on efforts to end illegal immigration, drug smuggling, and other transnational criminal activity.”
Thursday’s news was greeted optimistically if somewhat skeptically by Lewiston Mayor Carl Sheline, whose city was targeted in the surge.
“If this report is accurate, it is welcome news. ICE operations in Maine have failed to improve public safety and have caused lasting damage to our communities. We will continue working to ensure that those who were wrongfully detained by ICE are returned to us. I want to thank the public and all the community partners who came together during this time. Over the past few weeks, I’ve witnessed the very best of us and I couldn’t be more proud of us as a community,” Sheline said in a statement.
He went on to call for the Trump administration to withdraw ICE from Minnesota as well.
The withdrawal from Maine comes amid the fallout from a fatal shooting by U.S. Border Patrol agents over the weekend in Minnesota that left ICU nurse Alex Pretti dead. The bipartisan backlash has raised the specter of another government shutdown as Democrats call for any funding package to exclude money for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE.
ICE agents had been highly visible in Lewiston and Greater Portland since early last week as the Trump administration sought to arrest at least 1,400 immigrants. While the administration has claimed to be going after the “worst of the worst,” there have been numerous instances of immigrations without criminal records and with lawful permission to be in the country getting caught up in the sweeps, including an 18-year-old University of Southern Maine student, a civil engineer working for a Portland firm and a Cumberland County corrections officer recruit.
That’s sparked criticism from public officials such as Gov. Janet Mills, who during a press conference last week called the arrest quota “pretty broad” and questioned whether the agency would find that many criminal fugitives here. She also used the press conference to raise concerns about ICE’s tactics and lack of transparency.
“You know in America, we don’t believe in secret arrests or secret police … It’s one of the foundations of our country and our Constitution,” Mills said.
So far, ICE agents have arrested at least 200 people. In response to criticism from Cumberland County Sheriff Kevin Joyce over their arrest of one of his recruits, ICE agents removed all detainees held at the jail in Portland.