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.
Portland Mayor Mark Dion, whose city was among those roiled by the large presence of ICE agents, expressed some skepticism over the news, noting that “even if it is true” the “damage [is] already done” to communities like his.
“This will continue to have lasting effects for many of our residents. It also does not mean that ICE agents are completely gone, and so I would encourage our community to remain vigilant and continue to look out for one another,” Dion said in a statement.
U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree, a Democrat from Maine’s 1st District, also struck a cautious note in her response to the apparent withdrawal. She noted that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, hasn’t been transparent with her office about its activities in Maine.
Pingree criticized ICE’s operation here, pointing to the detentions of immigrants with lawful permission to be in the United States, asylum-seekers and those without criminal records.
“The unfortunate reality is, ending this surge and removing additional officers does not mean a return to how immigration enforcement functioned in Maine ‘for many years.’ What we have seen over the past year is radically different. The standard now appears to be broad, aggressive detentions and removals that do not distinguish between people who are here unlawfully, and people who are awaiting decisions on pending cases or have another valid status,” she said in a statement.
Gov. Janet Mills said that ICE’s withdrawal from the state doesn’t “end the pain and suffering” communities experienced during the surge. She reiterated her earlier calls for Congress to cut funding for ICE until there are safeguards to rein in the agency’s “lawless, dangerous conduct and their abuses of power.”
“Until there are substantive measures and changes in place, no state – including Maine – is protected from the weaponization of Federal law enforcement agencies against its own citizens by the Trump Administration,” Mills said.
Maine Democratic Party spokesperson Kristi Johnston called Thursday’s announcement a “calculated political move” from the Republican senator.
“Collins is trying to save face on the same day the Senate is set to vote on a DHS funding bill she has been leading the charge to pass without a single reform or guardrail to ICE’s reckless, dangerous behavior. Mainers see straight through this, and they won’t forget it,” Johnston said.
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 Homeland Security. U.S. Sen. Angus King, a Maine independent who caucuses with Democrats, has been among those opposed to approving Homeland Security funding “without adding adequate guardrails and robust accountability.”
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 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.
ICE agents arrested at least 200 people during their operation here. 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.