By PATRICK WHITTLE, RODRIQUE NGOWI and LEAH WILLINGHAM, Related Press
PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — Maine’s main Republican and Democratic officers, now engaged in one of many nation’s highest profile Senate races, supplied starkly totally different feedback on Friday as a surge of Immigration and Customs Enforcement brokers racked up their arrest totals.
Democratic Gov. Janet Mills has challenged immigration officers to supply judicial warrants, real-time arrest numbers and primary details about who’s being detained in Maine.
Mills additionally known as on her Republican rival, Sen. Susan Collins, to behave after the Home’s GOP majority defeated efforts by Democrats to curtail ICE funding.
“Let me be clear: Maine won’t be intimidated, and the reckless actions that we’ve seen ICE flip to won’t be tolerated right here in Maine,” Mills stated Friday.
Collins prevented criticizing Immigration and Customs Enforcement techniques, apart from to say that people who find themselves within the nation legally shouldn’t be the goal of ICE investigations. She additionally stated that insurance policies she has advocated for, together with offering physique cameras and de-escalation coaching for ICE personnel, may assist enhance accountability and belief.
And as protest organizers introduced Friday demonstrations towards ICE in Maine’s largest cities, she urged them to keep away from interfering with ICE arrests.
“There are folks in Maine and elsewhere who’ve entered this nation illegally and who’ve engaged in felony exercise,” Collins stated in an announcement. “They might be topic to arrest and deportation pursuant to the legal guidelines of america, and people who find themselves exercising the suitable to peacefully collect and protest their authorities must be cautious to not intervene with regulation enforcement efforts whereas doing so.”
Mills’ run for Collins’ seat may in the end assist decide the steadiness of the Senate. Mills, who’s termed out as governor, should first beat oyster farmer Graham Platner, whose outsider marketing campaign is endorsed by Sen. Bernie Sanders, within the Democratic main. Platner has strongly condemned ICE’s surge in Maine, and posted a video on social media Friday providing step-by-step recommendation on how to withstand.
“Over the previous couple days, ICE’s operations are clearly rounding up people who find themselves legally within the state of Maine,” Platner stated within the Fb reel. “I’m sick and uninterested in listening to that legally there’s nothing that regulation enforcement in Maine can do to guard residents from these thugs.”
Angelica Fisher, left, and Cristian Vaca pose for a photograph Thursday, Jan. 22, 2026, at his house in Biddeford, Maine. (AP Photograph/Patrick Whittle)
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Angelica Fisher, left, and Cristian Vaca pose for a photograph Thursday, Jan. 22, 2026, at his house in Biddeford, Maine. (AP Photograph/Patrick Whittle)
ICE says ‘Operation Catch of the Day’ has about 1,400 targets
The enforcement motion started Tuesday and has succeeded in eradicating harmful criminals from the group, Homeland Safety Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin stated in an announcement to media on Thursday.
A few of the greater than 100 arrests have been of individuals “convicted of horrific crimes together with aggravated assault, false imprisonment, and endangering the welfare of a kid,” McLaughlin stated.
The detentions in Maine, a largely rural state the place about 4% of the 1.4 million residents are foreign-born, have sparked nervousness in Portland and Lewiston, that are house to sizable immigrant and refugee populations, significantly from African nations.
Neighborhood leaders say that identical to in different U.S. cities the place the company has surged forces, some households are staying indoors, avoiding work and holding youngsters house from college for worry of arrest.
Roofer says ICE agent threatened his household
Cristian Vaca, an immigrant from Ecuador who lives in Biddeford, stated ICE brokers repeatedly threatened him Wednesday outdoors his house, the place the 28-year-old roofer lives along with his spouse and younger son.
“I’m right here legally. I got here right here in September 2023,” Vaca stated, citing his household’s security and financial alternative as causes for the transfer.
Chatting with The Related Press in Spanish via a translator, Vaca stated he was sitting on his sofa when he observed brokers taking pictures outdoors.
Vaca stated he has a U.S. Social Safety quantity, a piece allow and pays revenue taxes. A video Vaca took reveals an ICE agent talking to him via his closed entrance door.
Earlier than turning away, the agent says, “We’re going to come back again on your entire household, okay?” A baby’s voice may be heard within the background.
Protest organizers plan gathering in Portland’s Monument Sq.
Organizers introduced extra demonstrations, one deliberate for Friday night in downtown Portland. A small group of demonstrators additionally gathered Thursday afternoon and once more Friday morning outdoors an ICE area workplace in Scarborough.
“Maine is a type of locations the place you look out on your neighbors and everybody’s there,” stated one of many Scarborough demonstrators, faculty pupil Ava Gleason. “We’re a group, and to see folks are available and rip aside a group is freaking terrifying.”
Willingham reported from Boston.
