PORTLAND, Maine: The Trump administration is now targeting its mass deportation campaign on Maine, a state with relatively few residents in the United States illegally but notable African refugee communities in its largest cities.
The Department of Homeland Security named the operation “Catch of the Day,” an apparent play on Maine’s seafood industry, just as it has done for other enforcement surges, like “Patriot” in Massachusetts, “Metro Surge” in Minnesota and “Midway Blitz” in Chicago.
Reports of a surge in immigration arrests have struck fear in immigrant communities of Portland and Lewiston and prompted backlash from Gov. Janet Mills and other Democrats, including a refusal to help ICE agents obscure the identity of their vehicles by issuing undercover license plates.
Mills said Wednesday that if federal agents have warrants, they should show them, but if they are separating parents who have committed no crime from their children, they are “only sowing intimidation and fear and fostering division and suspicion among neighbors.”
Citizens have formed networks to alert neighborhoods to the presence of ICE agents and bring food to immigrants in their homes. Portland’s superintendent said the school district is developing an online learning plan for its students – more than half of whom aren’t white. Many businesses have posted signs saying ICE agents aren’t welcome.
“While we respect the law, we challenge the need for a paramilitary approach,” Portland Mayor Mark Dion said at a news conference Wednesday where he was joined by other local officials. “This council doesn’t stand apart from our immigrant communities, we stand with them.”
Portland and Lewiston have thousands of residents of African descent. Somali immigration accelerated in the early 2000s, leaving Maine with one of the nation’s highest Somali populations.
Now the presence of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents is causing great anxiety in Portland, said city council member Pious Ali, a native of Ghana.
“Our schools have seen about a quarter of immigrants not showing up,” Ali said, and many fear going to work as well: “There are immigrants who live here who work in our hospitals, they work in our schools, they work in our hotels, they are part of the economic engine of our community.”
ICE agents don’t need to spread trauma by smashing doors and windows, he said: “The federal government has the ability to contact these people without unleashing fear into our communities.”
Portland Councilor Wes Pelletier said business owners, teachers and college students have shared information to alert neighborhoods to enforcement activity, while volunteers have delivered groceries and diapers to families too afraid to go outside.
“Every arrest feels like a wound to Portland,” the councilor said.
Dozens of arrests The enforcement action is arriving in Maine, a mostly rural state with about 1.4 million residents, as confrontations between ICE and demonstrators continue in Minnesota, where ICE is under scrutiny following an agent’s fatal shooting of Renee Good.
ICE didn’t respond to a request for comment Wednesday on the a
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